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Underwood & Underwood 





A PEEP AT THE 
FRONT 

STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR 
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 


BY 

INEZ N. McFEE 

AUTHOR OP “BOYS AND GIRLS CP MANY LANDS,” 
“LITTLE TALES OP COMMON THINGS,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 

> > 

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NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 

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Copyright, 1918, by 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 



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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Peep at the Front. i 

II In the Trenches. 16 

III Getting Food to the Men and the 

Guns.29 

IV The Work of the Signalmen ... 45 

V Something About Airmen .... 61 

VI The Camera as a Weapon .... 76 

VII Manning the Guns. 86 

VIII The Army Engineers. 101 

IX Modern Grenadiers.112 

X The Tanks.125 

XI Scouts and Snipers.141 

XII Sappers and Miners.152 

XIII Camouflage. 159 

XIV The Army Spy. 169 

XV Over the Top. 182 

XVI “They Also Serve ”. 191 

XVII In the Hospitals.206 

XVIII Sportsmanship at the Front . . . 220 






































































































































































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I 


A Peep at the Front 

As we look at the map of France and think of 
the long lines of trenches which stretch from the 
Channel on the North to the Swiss border on the 
South, we try to imagine what this territory — this 
Western Front, where the armies of all the world 
were so recently centered — is like. It is a difficult 
task. For the Front is not like anything that was 
ever before seen. 

In order to understand the havoc that has been 
wrought, we must first take a look at the country 
that has never been under fire. It is a delightful 
land, this France. Never,-in any country, are there 
to be found bluer skies or greener fields. Here and 
there stretch roads as smooth and hard as any pave¬ 
ment, flanked by an endless procession of tree sen¬ 
tries. A hedge of sweet-scented haws and black¬ 
berry vines outlines the farms. Where the soil has 
been freshly turned, it lies in rich furrows of choco¬ 
late loam. Cattle graze in the valleys. There are 
sheep on the hillsides, half-hidden in a veil of gauzy 

i 


2 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


mist. The farm houses are like bits from an old 
picture. Such charming little cottages, with walls 
fashioned from a sticky, clayey soil, that dries rock- 
hard in the sun. The roofs are thatched with 
straw, all bound together in a mat of moss, flowers 
and trailing vines. There are climbing roses and 
vines over the porches and about the windows. 
Away in the distance are the red roofs of a village, 
with their old, old stone-and-plaster houses, mil¬ 
dewed by the centuries. 

Can you imagine a sweeter picture of peace and 
contentment? This was France, when, all sud¬ 
denly, the wolfish Huns came sweeping down to 
change it into the terrible waste and desolation of 
No Man’s Land. 

“You will take no prisoners,” said the Kaiser 
and his military leaders, in their instructions to their 
troops. “ Show no mercy. Show no quarter. 
Make yourself as terrible as the Huns who said: 
‘ Where our footsteps fall let no grass grow for a 
thousand years.’ ” 

Not merely in fighting, but in every form of 
devastation were those who counted themselves the 
most faithful to be “ terrible.” How wantonly they 
obeyed! All the world knows the horrible story. 
But the half has not been told of the gallant record 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


3 


of those heroes in khaki and blue who sprang at 
the call of humanity to bar the way of the foes, 
and at length to drive them back across the Rhine 
and disarm them forever. Theirs is a tale of fair 
play, of man-to-man pride, and of man-to-man 
honor, of noble deeds and chivalry. 

Hear the injunctions of General Pershing: 
“ Your first duty is to be soldiers; your second and 
scarcely less important, to help those who are poor 
and weak. You will be courteous to all women. 
Abstain from wine and liquor. Be kind to little 
children. You will fear God and honor your coun¬ 
try and win the war for liberty. God bless you and 
keep you.” 

How different the creeds and the followers of the 
two sides! On the one hand the boys in khaki and 
blue, gentlemen who would not stoop to indecencies 
lest their own honor and the honor of their nation be 
sullied; on the other, the tools of Prussianism, 
sneering contemptuously at ideals, fair play and 
chivalry. 

Suppose we go back in imagination some months 
and get a few pictures of the war at first hand. We 
will stand, if you please, by one of the pleasant 
French roadways which we have just scanned. As 
we wait, a jangling tumult rises in the distance. We 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


4 

have heard that sound too often in the States not to 
recognize it here. 

It is a motor truck. On it comes at an alarming 
speed. Chickens scurry to get out of the way; 
geese waddle reluctantly to one side, and a lordly old 
gander pauses to hiss in derision. That load of 
shouting, khaki-clad‘boys rouses no feeling of pride 
in his bosom, but we hail them with delight! They 
are our Buddies, the Yanks, the boys from the good 
old U. S. A. And back of them comes another 
truck load, and another, as far off as* the eye can 
reach. There are scores of them bound for the 
Front! Let us go, too. One of the drivers slows 
down at our signal, and we scramble aboard. 

“ Where are you going? ” we ask the soldier near¬ 
est us,— a clean, wholesome lad, so youthful-look¬ 
ing that we wonder if he has told the truth about 
his age. 

“ Search me! ” is the cheerful answer. “ My 
part is to obey orders and keep my rifle clean.” 
Righto! 

We look about us. The truck is comfortably 
filled with seasoned men, who somehow look very fit 
for any task that may befall them. Physically they 
are well able to tackle their weight in wild-cats, 
which, as you know, is the supreme test! Out on 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


5 


the training ground beyond the village they have 
practiced every form of trench work and open war¬ 
fare until they can do it automatically at command. 
They are thoroughly acclimated, too. We feel sure 
that the cool, sewer-like atmosphere of the trenches 
will hold no chills or pneumonia for them. 
Strapped to each man’s back is his kit — a weight of 
seventy pounds or more, and we hope it sets snugly, 
for if it does not, heaven help him! We know just 
what is inside those kits. Each man has his bed¬ 
ding, his extra socks and shoes, mess tin and emer¬ 
gency rations, first-aid dressings, ammunition, every¬ 
thing that he will require for a ten-day tour in the 
trenches. With bayonet and pick and shovel the kit 
is a sizable load. Again, we glance anxiously at the 
ones nearest us, and echo our hope that they rest eas¬ 
ily. For it promises to be a wild ride at best. The 
driver holds his machine squarely in the center of 
the road and lets the shrieking sirens that overtake 
him do the worrying! 

On we race! Women, children and old men 
hurry to see us pass. Here and there pretty French 
maids wave at the boys in khaki and call out a 
hearty “Bonne chance!” Presently we rush 
through a village which shows the scars of war. 
The stark beams of ruined houses stick up through 


6 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


piles of debris. Yonder is a jumbled mass of bricks, 
twisted metal and scattered stone. 

“ It is the mairie ” mutters a soldier beside us, 
“ hit squarely by a Jack Johnson! ” 

We wonder. But there is no time for explana¬ 
tions. On we go, jolting and jarring, and dodging 
shell-holes, for the road is no longer a smooth, 
straight ribbon of matchless perfection. Gone, too, 
are the tree sentinels which have served for so long 
to point out the royal highways. Indeed, there is 
not a green thing or a sign of life anywhere. We 
are rapidly nearing the war zone, and the whole 
country is bare and full of holes. How mournful 
it is! Stark, blackened stumps stick up like scare¬ 
crows; there are miles and miles of rusty barbed 
wire, and smashed tanks that had foundered in the 
mud. Now we come to old abandoned trenches, 
overgrown with rank grass and weeds. Scattered 
here and there among them are little groups of 
wooden crosses: mute memorials of the fierce con¬ 
flict that here was waged. 

The chauffeur begins to toot his horn like mad. 
But do not be alarmed. We have only come to a 
railway crossing, and the gates on both sides are 
closed, like they always are over here. A woman 
comes out. She gives us a quick salute and opens 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


7 


the farthest gate first. Then, before we can go on, 
a guard steps out from the house near the gates and 
holds up his hand. The officer in charge produces 
a pass, and the guard glances at it with quick per¬ 
functoriness. 

“ I would like to pass about a million more of 
you,” he says heartily, and we are off again. 

Soon there comes to our ears a noise like the sound 
of the surf on the beach at night. Occasionally we 
can see a cloud of black smoke away off to the right, 
and we know that big, old shells are whining their 
way into the air. The sight has a peculiar effect on 
the boys in the trucks. All along there have been 
snatches of song, bits of gloomy, dirge-like senti¬ 
mental stuff, such as the boys love to regale them¬ 
selves with, when their spirits are soaring high,— 
lines from “ The Maiden’s Prayer,” “ My Bonnie,” 
“ The Spanish Cavalier,” and another favorite, 
chanted over and over: 

“ Are we almost there? Are we almost there? ” 

Cried the dying gur-r-1 as she neared her home. 

“ Them are pop-u-lar trees that ra-hair 

Their tall green forms to heaven’s blue dome.” 

Now the liveliest words break on the air. For 
the boys sight stern work ahead and their moods 
have changed. Their high spirits have fallen. 


8 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


They need heartening and enlivening. So the light¬ 
est ditties and the most absurd parodies are given 
full sway.— One never hears of soldiers heading for 
the Front at the rate of twenty miles an hour sing¬ 
ing “ The Star Spangled Banner,” “ God Save the 
King,” or “ The Marseillaise.”— The following, to 
the tune of the popular army song, “ Long Boy,” is 
much in evidence: 

“ Good-by, ma; good-by, pa, 

Good-by, mule, with yer old hee-haw. 

I may not know how this stew is made, 

But you bet, by gosh, I’m not afraid. 

And, oh, my sweetheart, if I die, 

They cannot say I didn’t try: 

For I can swallow what I can’t chew, 

And that’s about all a feller can do.” 

Still the trucks go on. By and by all singing 
ceases from sheer weariness, and the silence is 
broken only by an occasional mutter and a grunt in 
reply, if indeed there is a reply. Long after dusk 
the procession comes to a halt, so suddenly that 
almost every one loses his balance. Quickly the 
troops pile out and stamp about to ease their 
cramped muscles. 

“ Thank God, boys, we are home! ” cries a joyous 
voice, and a tall young fellow raises his arm in a 
quick, sweeping salute. 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


9 


Only the swift command of an officer prevents a 
ringing cheer, and a stampede follows to a little, low 
hut, where the Red Cross is emblazoned in a wel¬ 
coming radiance beneath the protection of the stars 
and stripes. A canteen at this far outpost! It is 
a most delightful surprise. 

A sergeant reduces the elbowing mass to order, 
and soon the boys form into a long line and pass 
steadily before the rude counter, in an open window, 
where a sweet-faced, gray-haired American woman 
hands out to them hot coffee, chocolate and sand¬ 
wiches. Nor is she too hurried to smile at their 
surprise in seeing her, and to shake the hands eagerly 
stretched forth in happy camaraderie. Women are 
seldom seen this far at the Front, much less a woman 
so like their own mother, and the boys yield their 
places and move on reluctantly. But the memory of 
her and the good cheer she dispenses goes with them. 
They fall in cheerfully when the command, “ Com- 
panee! Atten-shun! ” rings out. 

Thirty minutes later they are headed for the 
trenches. Of course it has begun to rain. It nearly 
always rains when a trench shift is in progress. A 
dreary, steady drizzle, that speedily converts the 
iron-hard road into a thin layer of mud. Slowly, 
with their dripping ponchos hanging dejectedly, 


io 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


their heads bent under the galling load of their pack, 
the boys move steadily onward. One valiant lad 
begins a song. 

“ Silence! ” barks an officer. 

Tramp, tramp, tramp, on through the mud and 
the rain, with the slow rumble of the kitchens and 
machine guns for an accompaniment. The column 
is lost in the darkness both ahead and behind us. 
How deeply the man nearest us breathes! Is he 
nervous? Small wonder. It is their first trip to 
the trenches, and every one is keyed up. 

A Red Cross ambulance whirls up in front and 
pulls out to give the marching column the right of 
way. The driver flashes on his light. But he is 
quickly ordered to “ Shut that off! ” and the dark¬ 
ness seems blacker than before. 

On, on we go, till every one is ready to drop. 
“ My word/’ mutters the lad beside us, “ this pack 
weighs a ton! Where are those trenches anyhow? 
In Russia ? ” 

It would seem so, indeed! Another long interval 
of tramping. Each step seems more difficult than 
the last, for we have been traveling for some time 
now on a dirt road, and the mud is stiff and harder 
to shake than a life insurance agent. Frequently, 
too, we stumble blindly over a treacherous “ thank- 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


11 


you-ma’m,” and right ourselves, only to plunge into 
a sink-hole, half-filled with mud and water. On 
such occasions we collide with the man in front, 
while the man behind walks upon us. There is a 
strained feeling of tempers kept in the leash only by 
the greatest effort. 

“ Heavens! ” groans a stum'bling, plunging fel¬ 
low-sufferer. “ No wonder they gave us all those 
hardening exercises! This — is — a holy fright! ” 

Still on we go, for a million miles or so. And 
then a bulky shape looms at the right. What is it ? 
A curtain lifts and we glimpse the interior of a dug- 
out. The line halts, and a man in the doorway says 
something to our commander. 

“ An artillery dugout, huh ? ” whispers the man 
in front. 

We do not know, and there is no time to find out, 
for the line is again in motion. We skirt the em¬ 
bankment at a sharp right angle, and plunge down¬ 
ward into an opening in the earth. We have 
reached “ the front door ” of the communicating 
trench at last! 

Plunging, twisting, dipping downward, feeling 
our way along the wall of the zigzag treacherous 
course, we go, secure only in the thought that, at 
least, the enemy can not now shoot straight down 


12 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


upon us. Our end of the company halts for a mo¬ 
ment. As we start forward, “ Swat! ” something 
rises up out of the gloom, and gives the man in front 
a vicious slap in the face. 

The man behind snickers. “ Bath mat,” he ex¬ 
plains tersely. “ Let it settle.” 

So! We have met the “ dear enemy ” of the 
doughboy* On later inspection we find that a bath 
mat is a sort of slat-ladder. It looks so much like 
the runway by which ducks advance from their 
ponds up a steep bank that the Yanks called it a 
“ duck board ” on sight. And this seems to be the 
best name for it, as it certainly has not much re¬ 
semblance to the other thing for which it is named. 
Duck boards make the going easier in miry places. 
When a duck board sinks out of sight, another is 
placed upon it; so that usually the mud in the 
trenches can be kept at ankle depth. A duck board 
that has just been placed is an unstable affair, as 
full of antics as a clown. Try to cross one in a 
hurry, and it slips and teeters and sloshes around as 
though possessed. However, no substitute for it 
has yet been found. Probably there are enough 
duck boards in use in the trenches to make a board 
walk clear around the world. 

As we advance into the gloom, there is a whis- 



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A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


13 


pering ahead, a low laugh, and a form brushes past, 
going out. It is followed by another and another. 
Instinctively we know that they are poilus — French 
soldiers, whom our men in advance have relieved. 
Now there are two lines of soldiers, one in khaki and 
one in blue. We pass the open door of a dugout. 
It is filled with boys in blue. They greet us gayly. 
How happy they are and how eager to be gone! 
Their ten days in the trenches are nearly over. They 
are face to face with a bath, clean clothes, full feed, 
rest and recreation. And none but those who have 
served their time in the trenches can understand 
what this means. 

Presently the man beside us is at the head of the 
line: all of those who have gone before have taken 
up their positions. It is a little lighter here. We 
make out the form of a French soldier standing close 
to a fire step. He moves back and our soldier 
climbs into his position; for he is to serve on sentry 
duty. Not a word is spoken. The Yank simply 
takes over the place the poilu has held, and we de¬ 
cide to tarry beside him, while the relief goes for¬ 
ward. 

Not far away, a wiggling pair of legs stick out 
from a dark opening in the trench wall. Evidently 
a Frenchy has crawled into a funk hole after some- 


H 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


thing he does not care to leave behind. These funk 
holes are scattered here and there all along the 
trenches on the side nearest the Boches, so that they 
are safer from shells. The boys use them for 
private sitting rooms, and frequently for bedrooms, 
too. 

Over there in a funk hole is a poilu with his shirt 
off. He has a candle in his hand and is going along 
the seams very carefully. The nature of his search 
is revealed by a passing Tommy, who calls out cheer¬ 
fully, “ Come on, Frenchy, you can run ’em down 
easier out in the open! ” 

What do you know about that! 

Lice, or “ cooties,” as the Tommies call them, are 
the invariable rule in the trenches. So, too, are 
trench rats. It is said that the Pied Piper must have 
played all the rats in Europe into the trenches of the 
Western Front. They are to be seen scurrying 
about everywhere, and the darkness is made hideous 
with their squeals. As if in proof of our assertion, 
one of these creatures as large as a rabbit dashes 
past. There is a swish of our soldier’s bayonet, and 
he calls out triumphantly: “ Hi! Got my first 

Boche, boys! ” 

“ The saints be praised! ” commends a hearty 
Irish voice close at hand, and it satisfies our silent 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


15 

query: How far away is the next man ? — for the 
lines of khaki and blue have ceased. 

Now, comes an officer, dapper and cheery enough, 
unarmed and carrying a cane. Surely, we say to 
ourselves, there cannot be much danger in the 
trenches if he goes around with a cane! The offi¬ 
cer’s stick is one of the moral forces of trench war¬ 
fare, but we do not guess this till later. Our sol¬ 
dier stiffens in salute and his breathing becomes 
normal. 

“ How is everything? ” questions the officer pleas¬ 
antly. 

“ Oh, fine. We are in.” 

“ Righto! ” is the hearty commendation. The 
officer points out the cavity in the wall where the re¬ 
serve supply of ammunition and the rockets are kept, 
whispers instructions for guidance in case of bom¬ 
bardment, tells the soldier when relief from sentry 
duty may be expected, gives him directions for find¬ 
ing the dugout to which he has been assigned, and is 
off, after making sure that his directions are fully 
understood. 

Our soldier is on duty at the Front; and here we 
must leave him, while we learn of some of the ex¬ 
periences which awaited him, somewhere in France. 


II 


In the Trenches 

There was only one thing about the trenches ex¬ 
actly as one expected to find it, and that was the 
mud. It came in two colors — red, and a sort of 
bluish-gray, and it was so sticky that one marvels 
how the trenches were ever dug. You couldn’t 
even shovel the stuff without first greasing the 
shovel! 

Where the trenches could be prepared in advance, 
the work of making the main excavation was done 
by motor-driven digging machines, not unlike the 
giant ditch diggers which are familiar sights in many 
parts of America. Often, however, the trenches 
had to be prepared under fire. One soldier dug 
while his comrade held back the foe. They scooped 
out what shelter they could, and waited for darkness 
in order to dig deeper. 

Usually the main trenches were from six to eight 
feet deep. The crumbling walls were kept in place 
with chicken wire, with shored planking set on end, 
16 


IN THE TRENCHES 


17 


or more often with withes of osier willow cunningly 
wattled together. It was wonderful what a smooth 
wall a French peasant could make with no material 
save bundles of these twigs, and no tools save his 
two hands. There were countless miles of this osier 
work in the trenches, and it stayed put too, save 
where a shell struck it. Where it was possible to 
equip a trench completely, water was piped along it, 
and electric lights strung. The parapets along the 
top of the trench on the Boche side were re-enforced 
with sand-bags. Spaces were left here and there be¬ 
tween the bags, through which watch might be kept 
and rifles fired. Because of the constant attention 
and accurate aim of the enemy snipers, it was never 
safe to expose a bit of one’s person above the edge of 
the trench. Consequently trench periscopes, an ar¬ 
rangement of mirrors so that one might look over 
the parapet without exposing himself, were very 
much in favor. 

“ Here’s the best friend a soldier has in here,” 
said a veteran, tapping his steel helmet. “ See that 
dent? Piece of shrapnel! And if I’ve bumped my 
head on a crosspiece once in the dark, I’ve bumped 
it forty times. But for this old chapeau, I would 
have been laid out cold.” 

At first the soldiers looked askance at their steel 


i8 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


bonnets. They used them for all sorts of purposes, 
and never let a chance slip to lose one. We are told 
of a certain regiment of Scots whose colonel was put 
to every expedient to get his men to wear their hel¬ 
mets. He issued the strictest orders, and he and his 
staff went about with their bonnets on continually, 
seeking to set the fashion by force of example. 

“ I’m telling you, Jimmy,” said one of the serious- 
minded Jocks, “ the C. O. is no the mon for tae mak’ 
a show of himself like that for naething. These tin 
bunnets must be of some use. Wull we pit oors 

*) a 

on : 

“ Awa’ hame and bile your head! ” replied James. 

But Wullie refused to be advised. And the two 
got into a heated argument. Finally to settle the 
matter two helmets were thrust hastily on two heads. 
Simultaneously two heads were thrust over the par¬ 
apet. Immediately two Boche snipers let fly at two 
targets. And forthwith two Scotchmen fell heavily 
backward into the arms of their respective sup¬ 
porters. 

“ I tellt ye so! ” cried both, when they had recov¬ 
ered their breath. 

Thereafter the helmets were worn! 

Another inseparable item was the gas mask. 
Each soldier had two hung upon his breast in a 


IN THE TRENCHES 


19 


square canvas case. The corporal had strictest or¬ 
ders regarding these. “ Never fool around without 
your gas mask/’ he said. “ It is against the regula¬ 
tions. Of course you might get along fine for a 
month and never need a mask, and then again you 
would, and when you do need one, you need it awful 
quick.” 

When the doughboy first went into the trenches, 
every time he got an unfamiliar odor he bawled 
“ Gas! ” and every one within hearing scrambled 
frantically to get his mask in place. Soon, however, 
they learned to pay no attention to unofficial alarms, 
for there were gongs and sirens outside of every 
dugout to sound a warning. Gas is heavier than air, 
and it ran down into the trenches as readily as 
water. 

In the danger zones, most of the sleeping was done 
in the daytime, for then there were fewer chances 
of a surprise attack. The soldier’s bed might be a 
berth in the dugout, or he might have a private apart¬ 
ment in a funk hole. If in the latter place, and the 
hole had been occupied for sleeping quarters, prob¬ 
ably some energetic chap had hollowed out a shelf in 
the wall for a bed. On this the soldier spread his 
ground sheet. Then with his blanket wound tightly 
about him, and his heavy coat for covers, he lay 


20 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


down to rest. Rest? Yes, indeed—for he soon 
became accustomed to his odd quarters and slept as 
soundly as in his own bed at home. He was com¬ 
paratively safe here, too: shrapnel and gas could not 
touch him. 

The dugouts used for sleeping quarters were 
usually large enough to accommodate forty or more. 
The bunks were built in tiers around the wall. The 
first men to go into the trenches scrambled for the 
upper berths, but after the American engineers gave 
their attention to drainage, and the sleeping quarters 
were fairly dry, the rivalry for the lower berths was 
keen. Our doughboys matched pennies for the best 
berths, and there was a great deal of amusing chaff 
and comment. The listener might well imagine 
them taking up quarters in a hunting lodge on the 
first night of their vacation, instead of being on duty 
twenty-five feet under ground “ somewhere in 
France,” with the Big Boys pounding out defiance 
overhead. 

If the trenches were of long standing, there was 
sure to be a large dugout which served as a lounging 
room. In the Boche trenches, which the British 
took along the Somme, were elaborate dugouts fifty 
feet underground, large enough to accommodate five 
thousand men. Here were big rooms with concrete 



IN THE TRENCHES 







IN THE TRENCHES 


21 


floors, paneled-wood walls, electric lights, steel 
ranges, pianos — all the comforts of home! The 
boys in khaki and blue did not trouble to construct 
such apartments. Progress was their watchword. 
They were not content, like Fritz, to hole up and 
settle down. 

With musical instruments, books, magazines, and 
games to take the mind off the chief task, life in 
the trenches grew much easier; but it was never pos¬ 
sible to keep altogether serene. The soldiers knew 
that at any moment the Boches might succeed in un¬ 
dermining their quarters. Always the trenches 
were a target for shrapnel. Frequently a “ pip 
squeak ” charged into the traverse; there was a pro¬ 
longed hiss, a bang, a cloud of smoke, and a splat¬ 
ter of mud, followed by heavier clods of earth and 
destruction generally. The machine-guns pounded 
away continually — rat-at-tat! rat-at-tat! like a flock 
of merry redheads drumming on a tin roof. You 
didn’t see what they were shooting at, but you felt 
nervous if they stopped. So long as Fritz was 
banging away, it seemed safer to be returning his 
compliments. 

They tell us that the first boys to go into the 
trenches showed a beautiful contempt for caution 
that was born of ignorance. They had no fear in 


22 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


their hearts for the big German shell which came 
screeching like a flock of wild geese, but they did 
have an intense curiosity. Where would the thing 
hit? They stood on their tip-toes to find out! A 
shell whizzed close beside a party of doughboys who 
were at work near one of the communicating 
trenches. So close was it that some of them felt 
the shock when it exploded. Instead of scattering 
for dear life, they walked over and peered down into 
the hole it had made. In another instance, a Ger¬ 
man shell struck close to one of the kitchens and 
failed to explode. The trained soldier gave one of 
these “ duds ” a wide berth. There was no telling 
when the treacherous thing might go off. But the 
company cook was troubled by no such fears. He 
saw a fine chance to get a souvenir, and he went 
after it with pick and shovel. He nearly succeeded, 
too. He had the earth all removed from about the 
treacherous thing, when an officer providentially 
happened along and stopped him. 

It was a difficult matter for the boys to learn to 
stay under cover. They did not take kindly to fight¬ 
ing in a seven-foot trench. When the time came for 
action, they wanted to scramble out over the top and 
rush the enemy. Neither did they fancy looking 
through the carefully camouflaged peepholes. They 


IN THE TRENCHES 


23 


wanted to stick their heads out and take a good look 
around. Thousands of the Canadian boys threw 
away their lives before the Boche’s machine gun and 
artillery fire, during the early months of the war, 
because they were too daring to keep under cover. 

More seasoned officers continually cautioned our 
men. 

“ See here,” one said, sharply, “ I know you boys 
are not afraid, but I won’t have you exposing your¬ 
selves and acting as targets to draw fire on the rest 
of us. Look! ” He pointed to a strange poisonous 
green color which stained the fresh clods of a dirt 
shelf close at hand. “ Yesterday, a young scatter¬ 
brain poked his head up over the parapet at that 
point. A big Bertha got him quicker than scat, 
and wounded five of his bunkies. You give aid and 
information to the Huns every time you allow your¬ 
selves to be seen! The man who gets himself killed 
over here without a reason is not a hero. He is just 
a plain fool. Remember that! ” 

And now as to the day’s routine of duty in the 
trenches. 

Reveille was a welcome sound — perhaps! In a 
twinkling the soldiers tumbled out and rolled up 
their bed clothes, rubbing the sleep from their eyes 
and yawning. Then they assembled in the open of 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


24 

the traverse for the “ stand to.’' It was barely day¬ 
break, and a shivering, sleepy-looking lot they were 
as they gathered in the dim light around their com¬ 
mander. Some were blue with cold, notwithstand¬ 
ing their heavy overcoats. These men had been on 
sentry duty all night at the listening posts. Orders 
for the day were given. Then the boys turned for 
a wash and a shave at the suction pump which 
brought water to the trenches. It was a blessed 
privilege which only those in the “ quiet ” sectors 
enjoyed. In the front line trenches, all the water 
was carried up under fire, and naturally was too 
precious to be used, save for the barest necessities. 

Breakfast came next in the day’s business. The 
soldier carried at morning enough food and fuel to 
last him for one day — bacon, bread, bully beef, jam, 
cheese, oxo cubes, and coffee or tea, with perhaps a 
little bag of wood, coke, or coal for cooking and 
keeping himself warm. Further rations came from 
the rear. The soldier was not worried about that, 
but was warned to be provident. The trench vet¬ 
eran invariably saved a little of “ the chow ” for a 
possible next time. Never did he eat more than he 
really wanted, nor did he throw away the smallest 
morsel. With him Hooverism was truly a precau¬ 
tionary measure. He knew that at any moment 


IN THE TRENCHES 25 

the supplies might be cut off and a fast of several 
hours’ duration thrust upon him. 

Fires were next kindled in the “ fireplaces,” which 
were no more than buckets with holes driven in 
them, and presently the simple meal of bacon and 
perhaps an egg, bread and butter, and tea for the 
Tommies and Poilus, or coffee for the Sammies, was 
ready. It was eaten amid jokes and stories, or in 
heavy silence, according to the mood of the men. 
Some of the boys who had kept an all-night vigil 
were too worn and weary for food. They would 
mumble something about being called in time for 
dinner, and crawl into the funk holes, which, in the 
dim light, seemed to dot the walls of the trench all 
about, like sand-martin burrows. 

Clearing away took but a short time. Next 
would come a little work reinforcing the trench de¬ 
fenses, filling sand bags, and looking over the guns. 
But all this did not take long. In the trenches, as 
elsewhere, many hands made light work. The 
chief business of the day, then, was just waiting, 
waiting —“ endless waiting to shoot or be shot.” 

Dinner was served at twelve o’clock — a welcome 
break in a wearisome day. But the meal was soon 
prepared and sooner eaten. There were oxo soup, 
bully beef, and possibly some cheese as the principal 


26 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


items. One group of men had a cottage pie. This 
was a distinct triumph, for it took an artist in trench 
cooking to prepare it. It also bespoke considerable 
forehandedness, as the potatoes for making it 
were not included in trench rations! 

“Potatoes! Potatoes in a pie? ” you exclaim. 

Yes, indeed, for cottage pie was an odd sort of 
pie. It was just a layer of bully beef chopped fine, 
and covered with a layer of finely crushed potatoes, 
the whole baked in a mess-tin over a fire bucket. It 
was a prime favorite with the Tommies, and a de¬ 
lightful addition to trench fare. 

Somehow the long hours of the afternoon drifted 
away. Of course there were often moments of in¬ 
tense excitement, but as a rule, life in the trenches 
was decidedly monotonous. One got used to the 
screech of the shells, the din of the rifles, and the 
machine guns; they meant no more than the noisy, 
whirring machinery of a factory or shop. So long 
as your name was not written on the shells or tor¬ 
pedoes they would not hit you. But, if it were writ¬ 
ten there, you could not escape it on land or on sea! 
Then, why not rest easy ? So figured the doughboy, 
and he suddenly found that he had become a veteran. 

One other thing seems curious. After being hit, 
nine soldiers out of ten figured that nothing further 


IN THE TRENCHES 


27 


would happen to them. They had got their wound! 
The shell destined for them had been delivered, and 
there was nothing more to fear! A veteran tells of 
a doughboy who had received a severe wound in the 
leg while on duty at one of the far outposts. Sev¬ 
eral hundred yards of particularly nasty muck lay 
between him and the dressing station. So what 
did he do but climb out of the trench and start cheer¬ 
fully across the meadow! 

“ Shucks! ” he exclaimed, when an officer hur¬ 
riedly bade him get back to cover. “ I won’t get hit 
again. It’s me for chicken broth and a comfortable 
chair back at the hut.” 

Except at the immediate front, where nightfall 
might be the signal for attack, the supper hour was 
hailed with joy. It meant a day nearly ended, and 
the soldier went back with relief to his bed on the 
shelf — unless, perchance, he was chosen for duty at 
the listening post! If so, he must stand alertly 
all night with listening instruments to his ears, on 
careful guard, lest the enemy approach by means of 
counter-mines and tunnels. Perchance the listen¬ 
ing post might be in a camouflaged retreat only a 
few rods from the enemy’s farthest outpost. Often 
he stood up to his knees in mud and water, the rain 
pouring relentlessly down, and the slow hours of the 


28 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


night dragging by in aching misery. It was part of 
the routine and he accepted it with what courage he 
might. 

There were no cowards in the trenches. To be 
sure, men sometimes broke under the terrible shell¬ 
ing. But such happenings were talked about only in 
whispers; they were to a regiment what scandal is 
to a proud family. Moreover the boys knew that 
such fellows often redeemed themselves most nobly. 
The poor chap who crouched praying and sobbing 
one night, with every nerve aquiver, often went over 
the top, in a day or two, like the coolest veteran 
among them all. 

You see,” said one captain, “ scientists have fig¬ 
ured that what a man may do, in time of stress, de¬ 
pends largely upon the condition of his stomach and 
nerves at the moment. One day he may whimper 
and grovel like a yellow cur; the next he may per¬ 
form hero stunts with absolute indifference.” 


HHRMi 











SOUP KITCHEN 

























« 

























I 


I 
























































* 











Ill 


Getting Food to the Men and the Guns 

“ Breakfast up! Come and get it! ” 

So sounded the corporal’s welcome bellow on our 
second morning in the trenches. We fumbled hur¬ 
riedly, awkwardly with our mess kits, and fell into 
line, mechanically clutching our mess tin, knife and 
fork, cup and spoon. Our eyes were riveted upon 
the carrying party that had brought the chow up 
from the billets in the rear. A motley looking bunch 
of mud-stained, helmeted scarecrows they were! 
But they were very merry too — so merry that a 
veteran looked them over with quick scrutiny and 
inquired solicitously: 

“ Anybody hurt ? ” 

“ The coffee,” replied one of the number, a bit 
unsteadily, and his face gleamed white between the 
blotches of mud and grime —“ blown to smither¬ 
eens. And — Big Ed got a home-leave ticket, and 
a chance to rustle Liberty Bonds in the next cam¬ 
paign.” 


29 


30 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


“ Drat that fat boy!” ejaculated the veteran 
drolly. 

There followed a chorus of genial remarks on Big 
Ed’s proverbial good luck, but not a word about the 
unfortunate fellow who carried the coffee can 
strapped to his back. He was a casualty on which 
they dared not dwell. They could not and keep 
sane. 

The breakfast of potatoes, bacon and gravy, bread 
and corn syrup was eaten with a hearty relish. At 
its close a couple of runners arrived with a fresh sup¬ 
ply of coffee. It was poured and drunk in silence — 
a very real tribute to the lad in khaki who had just 
“ died in action somewhere in France ”— doing his 
duty no less than if he had been charging the Hun. 

We gathered that a very successful raid had been 
pulled off, near midnight, by a squad from the 
French and American sector on our right. The 
Boches were red hot for vengeance — that was the 
meaning of their heavy artillery outburst that had 
been going on since dawn. They were flinging 
Minnies and Berthas, pip-squeaks and whizbangs, 
shrapnel and gas shells helter skelter into our lines 
and beyond them. 

“ God help the poor fellows who have clicked for 
fatigue duty today,” murmured our captain, as the 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 31 

lads from the billets prepared to return. “ Not a 
path or a road will be safe. ,, 

“ Safe?” ejaculated one veteran, aside. “Safe! 
Shades of George Washington! Is any road in 
this blanked country safe? I had rather be in the 
front line trenches any time! ” 

“ Aye/’ his mate agreed quickly. “ Deliver me 
from toting supplies, of all things. You never know 
when you are going to get it on the road, and there is 
nothing to shelter you. There’s plenty of cover 
here, and besides it is so close they don’t send over 
many Big Boys.” 

“ But we thought most of the supply roads were 
camouflaged,” we ventured in surprise. 

“ Naw,” the man returned emphatically, “ that’s a 
camel-flage idea itself —* war as it frequently isn’t,’ 
as Irvin Cobb would tell you. I’ve made more than 
one trip to the regimental dump and I know. Why, 
just a short time ago I clicked it to go with a brigade 
.supply officer and a transport crew to carry food to 
a battalion billeted in a town that had suddenly be¬ 
come a bone of contention. We had a four-horse 
wagon and the roads were a fright, mud, mud every¬ 
where, hub deep most of the time. We were well in 
the enemy’s line of vision, too, and he kept busy pep¬ 
pering away at us on all sides. The Boche likes 


32 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


nothing better than to feel that he is beating us out 
of food and ammunition. By and by, along came a 
big Bertha. And, say, you have heard of freak 
shell bursts? Well, this was just that same. The 
driver and one horse were blown to atoms. The 
other horses were all wounded. I was riding the 
nigh leader. When I come to, I was in a ditch about 
twenty yards off. The officer was just getting to his 
feet, a little distance from me. If he had stayed 
where he was, he would have been all right. But he 
could not bear the sight of those poor horses, writh¬ 
ing and struggling in their agony. He ran to them 
and put the three beasts out of misery with his re¬ 
volver. Then, as he was beating it back to cover, 
blewsey! along came another big shell and carried 
his leg with it.” 

Only the other day we heard a man consoling a 
father whose son had just left for France: “ Quar¬ 

ter-master’s Department?” he queried. “Brigade 
supply officer? Oh, then he is safe. You needn’t 
worry about him. There is not a chance that he will 
ever reach the trenches.” 

Probably not. But — safef 

The veteran voiced our thought. “ There ain’t 
no use in trying to play safe in this war,” he said. 
“ You may as well stand up and take your medicine, 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 33 

for one of the Big Boys or a bit of shrapnel or a 
bullet or may be a cloud of gas is as liable to get you 
one place as another.” 

“ Oh, a little bit of shrapnel fell from out the sky 
one day,” began a chap beside us, in a lilting bari¬ 
tone. 

“ Silence! ” commanded an officer. And then, 
as if in derision to his commands, there came to our 
ears from far down the road, in the direction of the 
billets, the following lines, shouted and whistled in 
the merriest abandon: 

“ Send us the army and navy,- send us the rank and file. 
Send us the grand old Territorials — they’ll face the dan¬ 
ger with a smile. 

Where are the boys of the Old Brigade who made old 
England free? 

You may send my mother, my sister, or my brother, 

But for God’s sake, don’t send me.” 

It was the carrying party, in words borrowed 
from the Tommies* They met with misfortune 
coming up. In all probability they would fare no 
better going back. But then again they might: so 
what was the use of worrying? If they got back 
to billets, there was the chance of three or four 
hours’ rest before time to bring up the dinner. 

“ They are lucky to have clicked for rations, you 
know,” said the veteran. “ I drawed munitions 


34 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


once, and for seven long, miserable days we worked 
sixteen hours per, carrying Millses from the dump, 
in three tortuous miles of Flanders mud, which did 
its best to swallow us body and soul. It rained 
nearly all the time, too, and we didn’t get dried out 
good during the whole session. Millses have to be 
moved with care, and the job got mighty wearying. 
Besides the chow was awful. We advanced so fast 
that our brigade supply men just couldn’t get the 
rations up, and of course, the men in the front-line 
trenches got the best of everything. Water came 
up in gasolene cans, and you may guess how it 
tasted. Bah! it makes me sick yet to think of it.” 

“ How about handling food and supplies gener¬ 
ally back of the lines? Isn’t that a bit easier and 
safer?” we inquired. 

“ Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t,” returned 
the veteran sagely. “ It depends on the Boche air¬ 
men. Here’s what I saw once. You can judge for 
yourself. It was back at one of the rail-heads. An 
ammunition supply train had just come in. A half- 
dozen five-ton trucks were in waiting, and the cargo 
was soon loaded upon them. Then, with a motor¬ 
cyclist going ahead to clear the way, they set out. 
It was five miles or more to their destination — the 
divisional dump. And the going was bad. They 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 35 

could not make over ten miles an hour. But they 
chartered along as best they could, and the trip was 
getting right wearisome and monotonous, when lo! 
about a mile from the dump, a little black speck ap¬ 
peared against the sky. It came on swiftly, paused, 
and then began to swoop down. Presently there 
was a plop, a deafening roar and bang, and a great 
scattering of smoke, dust and fragments. When 
the scene settled, a little pile of debris was all that 
remained of the six trucks, the drivers and the sup¬ 
ply officer and his crew. ,, 

All army stores, rations, engineering and ordnance 
supplies needed for the various sectors within a ra¬ 
dius of several miles were stationed at the divisional 
dumps. It was the business of the regimental sup¬ 
ply companies to get these things to the regimental 
dump. As you may imagine, the location of this 
dump was decidedly uncertain. It changed its posi¬ 
tion continually to keep in touch with the advancing 
forces. To find a suitable location for it and to 
camouflage it successfully were problems taxing the 
ingenuity of the chief transport officers to the ut¬ 
most. It was a grievous thing to have a dump go 
up in smoke from the enemy’s bombs. 

“ A year ago,” said the veteran, “ I was up in a 
sector which the Frenchies had stoutly affirmed was 


36 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

as safe as a church. And it was, too, until all at 
once Fritz let go at us with everything he had. We 
never knew what started him. But the bombard¬ 
ment began at eleven o’clock at night, and never let 
up till the next afternoon. We had only one line of 
trenches, and there wasn’t any communicating 
trench. They made it too hot for us to leg it across 
in the open for our lines in the rear, and there was 
nothing for it but to hide in the dugouts. 

“ Suddenly a Big Boy landed spang on top of 
the dugout I was in, and buried us all under a moun¬ 
tain of dirt. Luckily my head stuck out, but it was 
fully an hour before I could work my arms loose 
and start to digging myself out. Not another man 
was in sight, but occasionally I would hear a groan 
or two. Some of the boys were alive at any rate. 
I shoveled dirt with my helmet to beat the king of 
the beavers, and soon freed myself. Then I found 
three lads with enough life left in them to help dig, 
once I got them free enough. We scooped dirt for 
hours, taking the greatest care not to cave in the 
little tunnel through which we were getting air, and 
finally managed to hoist ourselves up to the surface 
on the dirt steps we built. Once there, however, 
we found that the trench had caved in for a couple 
hundred yards or so. Fritz was still strafing away. 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 37 

It was hazardous to try beating it that far in the 
open. But we could not stay where we were. So 
we jumped from cover and sprinted some, I tell you. 
Shells and shrapnel rained about us, but we made it 
all right, and fairly rolled down the stairs into the 
next dugout. Fortunately, we arrived so swiftly 
that nobody mistook us for Boches and plugged us. 

“We stayed in that crowded, foul-smelling hole 
an eternity, it seemed, and every moment we got 
hungrier and hungrier. Finally an officer rapped 
sharply. ‘ Who will volunteer to go back to billets 
for some chow ? ’ he asked. 

“ I had neglected to load up my emergency ra¬ 
tions, and I reckon I was about the hungriest fellow 
there. It always did make me plumb mad to be hun¬ 
gry, and I can do anything when I am mad. So I 
said I would go. I went over the top in five min¬ 
utes, and every man-jack of those Fritzies started 
popping at me. I dived into a shell hole, and there 
I had to stick for two mortal hours. And my tem¬ 
per didn’t improve any, you can bet. Then some¬ 
thing else attracted the Huns, and I hiked out. I 
beat it to the mess outfit on record time. Two fel¬ 
lows volunteered to help me carry the chow. We 
each grabbed a hot tin from the dog-wagons (rolling 
kitchens), and hustled back, stopping occasionally 


38 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

in shell holes when Fritz’s meanesses got too uncom¬ 
fortable. Maybe you think those boys in the front 
line didn’t have a hearty greeting for us! But it 
was the hardest dinner I ever hustled in my life.” 

“ Speaking of them soup wagons,” his mate piped 
up, “ next to a bath and clean clothes, ain’t they 
about the comfortablest thing about the billets? I 
dreamed about ’em last night! ” 

They certainly were most satisfactory. We de¬ 
cided this ourselves when we got back to billets, a 
few days later. The “ soup wagons,” or kitchens on 
wheels, were together in a little group, in a thor¬ 
oughly camouflaged retreat. They had great com¬ 
partments for boiling, for double boiling, for roast¬ 
ing, and for making soup. And the smells that is¬ 
sued therefrom were most appetizing! 

The boys were just lining up for mess. A glance 
at our wrist watch showed the hands pointing 
squarely to twelve o’clock, and we felt a thrill of 
pride in these army cooks. We fell in and moved 
slowly up with our mess tins open and ready. 
Um-m! Um-m! At the first kitchen, the cook la¬ 
dled a generous helping of roast beef and brown 
gravy into the lower half of our tin. How wel¬ 
come it was after the bacon and tinned meat of the 
trenches! The next cook served us with mashed 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 39 

potatoes: a third cook offered string beans, an un¬ 
usual luxury — no doubt they came from some 
thrifty French garden away at the rear of the billets. 
A fourth cook ladled bread pudding with real raisins 
into the cover of our kit. The coffee was in the 
hands of the kitchen police: so, too, was the milk, 
but it, alas! gave out before we reached it. Bread 
was served from the top of a packing case, by a 
private who had been detailed to help the cooks. 
We got only one slice, but the rest of the helpings 
were so generous that we were well content. 

How jolly every one was! Laughing, chatting, 
singing gay little bursts of song, interchanging hu¬ 
morous personal abuse; jokes and what not. It was 
like a camping lark in the woods. The sun poured 
splotches of molten gold upon the khaki uniforms, 
and there was a delightful tang in the air which sug¬ 
gested gypsying. Some of the boys fell into line 
for “ seconds,” especially those who had just come 
down from the trenches. Later, there was a mad 
scramble to be first in line for the dish washing. 
This feat was accomplished in the sketchy fashion 
of campers. There was a big kettle of hot water, 
and the mess tin, knife, fork and spoon were 
plunged in and paddled about briskly for a moment 
or two, then set to dry in the sun. This method 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


40 

did well enough for the lucky fellows who suc¬ 
ceeded in being first. But it was mighty hard on 
the last ones. The water was then cold and about 
the consistency of soup. The late comers turned 
from it in disgust and cleaned their kits after a 
fashion learned in the trenches, by sprinkling them 
plentifully with Flanders mud and scouring them 
bright with wisps of grass and leaves. 

After these informal housekeeping duties were 
disposed of satisfactorily, the boys settled down to 
an afternoon of mingled work and leisure. In front 
of a barn was a lad writing home. Yonder was a 
group under a camouflaged grape-vine playing cards. 
Shouts and laughter farther down the street betok¬ 
ened a wrestling match. Off at one side, peering 
grimly at a rat hole in the floor of his billet was 
another lad, with his lieutenant’s pistol in hand 
ready to fire. His bunkie had his shirt off, and was 
giving it a most rigid examination. 

“ Do you know, Reddy,” he confided suddenly, 
“ I’ve got a notion that this war will finally be ended 
by the cooties. They will just naturally exterminate 
the Huns and the Allies, and fight it out amongst 
themselves. Look at this venerable patriarch. He 
is some cootie — a major-general anyway.” 

A couple of squads passed us with picks and 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 41 

shovels. “ They have been stung for trench dig¬ 
ging,” said a pessimistic veteran. “ Maybe some¬ 
thing important for a coming military operation, or 
maybe the officers think they just need the exercise.” 

We could see at a glance that the expedition did 
not specially appeal to the lads in question, but our 
sympathy for them dissolved in a gale of laughter, as 
one of their number wailed out in a high, squeaky 
tenor: 

“ Oh, why did I leave my cozy home? 

I wanted to live higher, 

So I married Marier, 

Out of the frying pan into the fi-er.” 

There was one platoon making ready for a hike, 
with disgust written large upon their faces. Who 
wanted to hike, with the sun ninety in the shade, 
and a prospect of ten days in the trenches just before 
them? They relieved themselves a little by poking 
fun at two worried-looking lieutenants, who ap¬ 
peared in anxious search for billets, for a company 
that was to come up from the rear. The village was 
already crowded, and there was considerable point to 
the suggestion, “ Say, gentlemen, you will find some 
right nifty, fresh-air quarters in that little old pig 
sty over yonder behind The Arcade,” a thumb indi¬ 
cating a weather-beaten old shed which masquer¬ 
aded under that high-sounding title. 


42 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


Later on we met with a detail setting out with the 
evening meal for the boys in the trenches. It was 
rather meager: a lad with a soup can strapped to his 
back, a runner half-hidden under his bags of bread 
and meat sandwiches, and a stalwart fellow with 
chocolate, tinned milk, and army biscuit. They had 
an alert, eager look, but their eyes showed tension. 
They knew and we knew that this trip might be their 
last. Fritz had been unusually active all day, and 
the night promised to be a stormy one at the Front. 

Nimble fingers had been active all the afternoon 
loading strips for the machine guns, and now there 
was a little squad standing by with mules and wagons 
ready to take up the ammunition. “ Good-by, lads, 
and the best of luck ” bade the corporal, and they 
were off. 

Those four fatal words! God help the brave lads 
in the food and ammunition sections tonight! We 
turned helplessly away, conscious only of a dim feel¬ 
ing that we must not add a bad omen by watching 
the boys from sight. It was the fortune of war. 
There must be food for the men and the guns. 
Then, all suddenly, there burst on our ears a gay, 
rollicking song — a song that bubbled over with 
cheer, notwithstanding the somber suggestion of the 
words. We recognized the voice of the runner in 
the lead. 


GETTING FOOD TO THE MEN 43 

“ I want to go home, I want to go home, 

I don’t want to go to the trenches no more, 

Where sausages and whizz-bangs are galore. 

Take me over the sea, where the Allemand can’t get me, 
Oh, my, I don’t want to die, 

I want to go home.” 

All this was but the visible aspect of the problem 
of getting food to the men and the guns — a mere 
peep of the finish at the home stretch. In order to 
get an idea of the vast amount of labor involved 
one must go back to the bases of supplies. At just 
one such base, for example, there were three solid 
miles of sheds. Each shed was 500 feet long. In¬ 
side these sheds were stacks and stacks of barrels, 
boxes, and sacks, containing flour, bacon, sugar, 
bully beef, salmon, canned and dried fruits, choco¬ 
late, coffee, tea, and what not. There were literally 
acres of foodstuffs. 

One was astounded at the sight. There seemed 
enough food to feed all of France. We asked an 
officer how much there really was. “ Well,’’ he re¬ 
plied, squinting about here and there down the long 
lines, as though making a rapid calculation; “ there 
ought to be enough to feed a million men, three 
days! ” 

A million men for three days! Think of it. 
How much then would be required to feed three mil- 


44 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


lion men, not for three days, but for three months, 
and for all those other months that the war lasted! 
Could there be that much food in the whole wide 
world ? Certainly one did not envy Mr. Hoover his 
task of calculation! 

What hosts of cars and ships and men it must 
have taken to collect these vast stores! We noticed 
the laborers, mostly Chinamen, German prisoners, 
and “ cornfield niggers,” caught up by the draft 
from the Southern cotton fields, back in the States, 
and sent over to serve as workmen. We longed for 
a peep at their camp, where, we were told, everything 
was as clean and shipshape as any training camp at 
home, and their food far better than that of most 
of the French workmen who boarded themselves. 











































♦ 




























































































IV 


The Work of the Signalmen 

No work in the army was more important than 
that done by the signalmen. “ The nerves of the 
army ” some one has called them, for they served to 
keep all parts of the big body together and make 
them work as a whole. It was the duty of the sig¬ 
nal corps to transmit information. This was ac¬ 
complished in many ways, ranging from courier to 
wireless, from rockets at night to heliograph flashes 
by day, from telephone and telegraph lines to the 
curious “ buzzer ” and its wire on the ground, along 
fence posts, strung among trees, anywhere it could 
be put. Searchlight signals, signal flares, and the 
old wigwag code with flags were also used. 

The signal corps was made up of specialists, and 
no division of the army had greater opportunities 
for important service. The men included runners, 
practical electricians, telephone operators, telegra¬ 
phers, wireless men, and aviators. The humblest 
of these were perhaps the runners, and you might 
not think of them as heroic. Usually they were 
45 


46 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

young fellows, too light for bayonet duty. When 
swifter ways of transmitting messages were impos¬ 
sible, they had to go. Day or night, through the 
very worst barrages, they carried on. Nothing 
stopped them except death. 

Up in the front line trenches two runners set out 
with a message for headquarters. Before they had 
gone twenty paces one fell with a shattered arm. 
He motioned for his comrade to go on, and set to 
work trying to bind up his injuries with appliances 
from his first aid packet. A few feet farther on the 
second man fell — killed outright. The first man 
saw him fall. He stumbled to his feet and went 
forward at once, evidently determined to carry on. 
A bullet got him in the back. His legs refused to 
support him, but he could still crawl. So onward he 
went. It was twenty yards more to his goal. But 
he made it at last. Eager hands reached for him 
and hauled him over the parapet. We feel sure that 
the message was delivered. But what about the 
lad? Was it home and mother for him, or a 
wooden cross that night when the firing ceased? 
Alas, we shall never know. 

In an attack, the signalman went over with the 
infantry. His weapon was a wireless or a telephone 
pack. Suppose that reinforcements were needed; 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 47 

that there was danger of the troops being cut off 
from supplies; that ammunition was giving out, or 
that there was need for the army to close up — it 
was up to the signalman to get the message through. 

At Loos, where the fighting was so terrific that the 
communications had in many places been cut, line¬ 
man after lineman went out to repair the broken 
wires. But all to no avail. Then a signalman 
named Cleary volunteered for the service. He suc¬ 
ceeded, but the communications came in so jerky 
and broken that they were almost unintelligible. 
Another signalman went out to learn the reason. 
And what did he find ? 

Lying on the ground, with both legs and an arm 
blown off, was poor Cleary, courageously holding to¬ 
gether the severed pieces of wire in his left hand. 
A shell had hit him just as he located the break. 
But he knew the importance of his mission, and he 
would not give up. By sheer force of will he clung 
until help came. Then the brave fellow collapsed 
and died before he could be taken to the hospital. 

In one of the attacks on the Somme, the artillery 
observers in a certain storming party lost their sense 
of direction. All land-marks were blotted out, and 
it was impossible in the smoke and the grime and the 
mud to ascertain whether the infantry had captured 


48 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

their objective, failed, or gone beyond it. The 
squad stood uncertainly, staring through their 
glasses, when, far away in the thickest of the battle- 
smoke, they caught sight of a red and white flag 
waving desperately, apparently repeating the same 
message over and over. Evidently no one had seen 
them or replied to them and their need was dire. 

“ It is a company of infantry that have gone 
too far, sir,” explained a signalman, a mere boy, 
hurrying to the captain. “ Many of them are 
wounded, many more are dead, and they are in dan¬ 
ger of being surrounded. They are asking for our 
artillery to put a curtain of fire in front of them and 
for reinforcements to be sent up.” 

On the instant word was flashed back over the 
wire to the artillery and to the infantry headquar¬ 
ters of the division that was holding that sector. 
The signalman caught up his flags and stood waiting. 
“What shall I tell them, sir?” he questioned ea¬ 
gerly, as the officer hesitated, dumb before the 
knowledge that if the boy climbed out on the para¬ 
pet the Boches would surely get him. 

" Say that their message has been received, and 
that help is coming, and — the best of luck to you, 
my lad.” 

The youth saluted and smiled. 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 49 

Scrambling out over the parapet, with a flag in 
either hand, he crouched against a mud wall, in or¬ 
der that his flags and figure might be thrown into 
clear relief, and began wigwagging. The stranded 
ones did not see him, and his comrades in the 
trenches waited breathlessly. Over and over 
wagged the signals: 

“ Message received. Help coming.” 

Then about the slender figure the mud com¬ 
menced to leap and bubble. A Boche observer had 
spotted the signalman, and his guns were after him. 
But the boy did not pause. Back once again waved 
his call for attention, and then close upon the heels 
of it: “ Message received. Help coming.” 

“ O. K.” came the reply. But it was an instant 
too late. 

Wee —*ee — e — bang! A whiz-bang raised 
the dirt all about the young hero, he was lifted clear 
off his feet and hurled over the parapet. Killed? 
By a miracle, no; but severely wounded and shell¬ 
shocked. Hospitals and Blighty for him. His bit 
was finished. 

Most of you are familiar with the semaphores 
used in the railway yards, which convey signals to 
the trainmen by means of raised or lowered arms. 
In the army, semaphores bearing flags or lanterns 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


5o 

were frequently used in signal work. We hear 
many tales of novel semaphores which have been 
pressed into service. 

Round a certain town German shells were busy 
with an accurate aim which puzzled the officers. 
Not a day but some important ammunition dump or 
camouflaged battery went up in smoke. How did 
the Huns find the target? No aviator could photo¬ 
graph things under ground. It was certain there 
was a traitor in the camp. Somehow messages were 
being sent to the enemy, and all hands were detailed 
to watch for suspicious characters. 

Days passed without avail. The destruction 
went on with even greater activity, and the affair 
became desperate. Then a young airman who had 
been scenting trouble from the sky, swooped down 
and went at once to the commanding officer. 

“ I have had my eye on old Mother Budzine’s 
washing for an hour or two,” he said. “ The old 
girl is running a signal gallery! When she first 
spread out her sheets on the grass, they lay in the 
form of a V. Later she moved them around to 
make room for more clothes, and this time she 
spread them out like an R. They were signals sure 
as preaching! I am confident she is at the bottom 
of all our trouble.” 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 51 

Now, as everybody knows, white always shows 
up well against the dark background of the earth. 
That is why the airship-landing stages are painted 
white. Sheets spread out on the lawn in such posi¬ 
tions might well be observed by the German airmen. 
But the commanding officer pished and poohed. 
Mother Budzine was well known. She was very 
poor and old, so old that she was almost doddering. 
She walked with a queer hitch and her eyes were 
very weak, necessitating the wearing of huge blue 
goggles. It was preposterous to suspect her. Her 
hut was without the lines. No one could possibly 
get through to take her information, and it was 
obvious that she could not secure it herself. 
Nevertheless, the young airman clung to his belief 
so staunchly that for two days he never let that 
laundry out of his eye. 

And then he was able to prove conclusively that 
his suspicions had been well founded. Those 
sheets were always on the lawn, and moreover they 
were being used as semaphores, just as he had said, 
to point out to enemy airmen the positions worth 
shelling. Of course, the old lady soon ceased 
signaling forever, and she proved a splendid 
camouflage; being in truth a young man strong and 
hearty — a German spy, skilled in all the arts known 
to signalmen. 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


52 

Hiking is the average soldier’s pet aversion. To 
the signalman hiking was part of his daily stunt. 
Any moment he might get orders to establish com¬ 
munications with some distant point or to sally out 
on observation duty, and his kit was no joke. He 
carried an overcoat, a waterproof sheet, two gas 
masks, steel helmet, field glasses, pistol, extra car¬ 
tridges, “ iron rations,” canteen, first-aid packet, 
flag kit, wireless outfit, or telephone pack, according 
to his specialty. The iron rations were for use in 
case the signalman got trapped in some shell hole. 
All soldiers carried one of these emergency packets. 
It consisted of a pound of bully beef, a small tin 
containing tea and a bit of sugar, some oxo cubes, 
and a few army biscuits. 

Walking or crawling with his load over the kind 
of territory the signalman had to cover was not easy. 
The whole country was overgrown with rank grass 
and tall weeds. The ground was slimy and treach¬ 
erous, dotted here and there with shell holes filled 
with stagnant, smelly water, ankle-deep in some 
places, over his head in others. Often the route lay 
through old abandoned trenches, over sodden straw 
and moldy sandbags, across miry stretches of muck 
where the last duck board had long since sunk 
beyond recognition, on and on till his blood ran 



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WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 53 

cold, and he was faint and dizzy, and asking himself 
over and over, “ Why am I here ? What are we 
fighting for? What did the Belgians ever do for 
us? What matters it what becomes of the French? 
God help me! I am fed up on war! ” 

But he carried on. 

“ I was sent out one day last week with an 
officer and a sergeant to act as an observation 
squad,” said one of the veteran telephone operators. 
“ We took up our position in a shell hole big enough 
to bury a Tin Lizzy in. Telephone wires were soon 
in order, and we waited for results. They came in 
the form of Big Boys from the enemy, and landed 
all around our hole: but, thank God, none of them 
came in. In the meantime our men were shelling 
Fritz’s stronghold, and from where we were we 
could see our shells burst right in the Boche trenches. 
Believe me, this old war was one long string of 
excitement from morning till night, and from the 
first of the week till the last. You never knew 
what was coming next. The ’phone might ring at 
any moment, day or night, and order a barrage fire, 
and in ten seconds from the time I got the order 
the guns would be pounding away.” 

A young corporal of the Signal Corps tells of his 
experience while up on observation duty with his 


54 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

lieutenant. One thousand feet above the enemy’s 
shrapnel they floated idly, keeping watch of a certain 
military railway belonging to the enemy.— That is, 
the lieutenant was keeping watch, while the cor¬ 
poral was indulging in a series of joshing messages, 
sent to his envious comrades below, by means of the 
semaphore flags. 

“ Bringing up their stuff at night, I suppose,” 
said the lieutenant, as the moments slipped by with¬ 
out results. “ Call up the windlass men, corporal. 
Tell ’em to give us 2,000 feet. We’ll rise up over 
that elevation and get a better view of the Hun lines. 
Possibly we can send in a little report on scout 
duty.” 

Obediently the corporal turned to the telephone 
that led down the slender wire cable to the windlass 
station which controlled their balloon. There was 
a lazy answer from the sergeant below, and soon 
the two observers felt the big bag steadily rising, 
as they swung off in the breeze towards No Man’s 
Land. 

“ Hi, there! Lieutenant, there’s a supply train 
creeping up the valley right this minute,” cried the 
corporal, suddenly. “ See, over there beyond that 
camouflage of tree branches and fencing that we 
marked yesterday.” 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 55 

Quickly the lieutenant trained his binoculars on 
the yellowish streak which outlined the railroad. It 
was indeed true. “ Send your message down, cor¬ 
poral,” he ordered quickly. “ Maybe the staff will 
want to show them we are not asleep on this sector. 
You won’t need to bother about range; the artillery 
has that all down fine.” 

“ Quick! Gimme connection with the head¬ 
quarters’ staff,” yelled the corporal into the trans¬ 
mitter. “ Hello. Balloon Station No. 3. Lieu¬ 
tenant Gray reports train movement behind the 
enemy lines. Quick action will catch them in the 
open.” 

Bing! The corporal had hardly turned around 
when there came a muffled roar from a whole battery 
of American “ four-point sevens.” He set his 
glasses on the faint streak of the railroad, and was 
just in time to see the burst of black smoke and dirt 
which rose a little in front of the train. “ Short, 
a bit short,” he muttered. “ Two hundred yards’ 
elevation would get ’em, don’t you think, sir? ” 

He turned to seize the -telephone, which would 
now be connected directly with the fire-control com¬ 
mander, but the lieutenant stopped him. 

“ Wait! ” he called excitedly. “ There is one that 
has landed squarely! And another! The boys are 


56 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

changing their elevation. They’re getting ’em. 
See? They are throwing three-inchers now! 
Glory! Look at ’em coming in all along the line. 
We have started a real battle, corporal.” 

And so they had. 

The irritated Boches at once turned lose a rain 
of shrapnel, Berthas, Minnies, and other high 
explosive missiles, evidently determined to make the 
Sammies pay dearly for their meddling. And the 
men in khaki returned their fire with interest. It 
was going to be a real artillery duel sure enough. 

Each side had the other pretty well spotted, so 
there was nothing for the two observers to do but 
watch the proceedings. Their position gave them a 
beautiful bird’s-eye view, and they leaned eagerly 
over the rim of the steel basket, forgetting that the 
vengeful Germans would be sure to seek out the 
guilty spotters in the air. There were no airplanes 
about; so, of course, information had been turned 
in from the balloons, and it was easy for the foes 
to know which balloon, for none of the four or five 
other captive gas bags along the Sammies’ lines was 
in range. 

A great billow of ‘air which suddenly tugged 
heavily on the basket and sent the balloon careening 
off sidewise in a maddening spin, brought the men 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 57 

in the clouds to a quick realization of their danger. 

“ Sure as preachin’, corporal,” yelled the lieu¬ 
tenant, his look and tone repeating the full measure 
of his consternation, “ they are flinging shrapnel 
around this crazy old gas bag! ” 

“ And they’ve about got our range, too, sir,” 
replied the corporal, grimly. “If that had been 
above instead of under us, we’d be down among our 
buddies right now. 

“ Shall we signal to be lowered, or ask for another 
thousand feet of cable, sir?” queried the corporal, 
uncertainly. 

The lieutenant’s answer was a gesture toward the 
windlass station. He had been watching the little 
squad of signal corps men below, and now he saw 
them break and scatter in all directions. The next 
instant the spot where they had been standing was 
buried in a hazy mist of smoke, flying clods and bits 
of machinery. 

“ A Minnie,” gasped the lieutenant, “ square and 
true as could be! ” 

“ Just so, sir,” the corporal agreed, “ and the 
telephone is gone.” He threw off his now useless 
headgear and turned to face his superior. 

“ So is everything else, corporal,” returned the 
lieutenant, straightening coolly, though his face went 


58 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

white. “ See how this old car scuds before the 
wind! We are adrift and going skyward seventy 
miles an hour.” 

The corporal stared dazedly down. He could see 
the broken cable swaying traitorously in the edge 
of the dust clouds above the front-line trenches. 
They were heading out over No Man’s Land, 
straight toward the German stronghold! 

Mechanically the corporal reached for the escape 
valve, but his superior struck his hand aside. “ It 
won’t do,” the lieutenant advised quickly. “ We 
would be within deadly rifle range, long before we 
could bring the bag near the ground. We must 
trust to the parachutes, and quick while the going 
is good.” 

“ But t-two thousand feet, sir,” stammered the 
corporal, struggling to be game, but conscious of 
only one thing — he had never ridden in one of the 
contrivances! 

“ The higher, the safer,” the lieutenant yelled 
reassuringly, as he worked at the lashings which held 
the parachute nearest him to the basket guys. 
“ These things are inspected before every ascent. 
There is not much chance of failure. But we must 
get off at once. This old ark is streaking straight 
for Berlin!” 


WORK OF THE SIGNALMEN 59 

“ If I were sure it would land there,” speculated 
the corporal, “ I’d take my chance at the Kaiser 
right now.” But, nevertheless, he followed his 
companion’s suit, and shook his parachute free from 
its bindings. 

“ You go over the side first,” instructed the lieu¬ 
tenant. “ Quick, swing out in your seat, and I will 
handle your lines. You ought to make it not far 
from our barbed wire entanglements. There, cut 
loose, quick! ” 

The corporal settled gingerly in his canvas- 
bottomed ring, and pulled the check cord. He 
dared not think of himself dangling there a half mile 
above ground, with nothing but a flimsy affair of 
silk and cord between himself and eternity. He 
could only pray that the umbrella would unfold 
promptly, and that he might land right side up — 
for the moment it did not matter where! Just to 
touch solid ground again would be sufficient. 

How the lieutenant gazed anxiously after his man 
until he saw the parachute whip into shape and go 
sinking like a great yellow pumpkin : how he himself 
followed, and how the one landed in a shell hole in 
No Man’s Land and the other settled into a thicket 
beside a Boche listening post and managed to escape 
without harm, is too long a story to be finished here. 


6o 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


The incident shows the part adventure played in 
the career of the signal man. He did not know 
what might happen next, but he was pretty sure 
that it would be something interesting. Any 
moment the opportunity might come to render some 
particularly important service, and so he carried 
on alert and eager — a live nerve, ready to transmit 
his message to his chief through all hazards. 



ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN 






















* 
















Something About Airmen 

The airmen were “ the eyes of the army,” and sO 
many things did they have to know and to be that 
they might well have been termed “ supermen.” 
After passing the doctor's rigid tests, the young 
aviator spent a couple of weeks getting some idea 
of military discipline. Then he went to the ground 
school. Probably you have never heard of some 
of the subjects that he studied: aerial photography, 
bomb mechanism, bombing, astrology, meteorology, 
the make-up of an airship, wireless, and the like. 
He had to master certain requirements before he 
began to learn to fly, and it usually took about two 
months' time. Then came the real fun. 

“ Do you know,” remarked a cadet of the U. S. 
Air Service, “ in looking forward to flying, I won¬ 
dered if I would be nervous the first few times. 
Really, I wasn't. You are so absorbed with your 
work that you never think of anything happening. 

61 


62 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


Of course, the old ‘ busses ’ we rode in are as safe 
as a rocking-chair, and we were not in any danger 
of falling. You have no idea how beautiful the 
earth is from a mile high in the air. Roads look 
like little white scars, trees look like green bumps, 
fields like beautiful little pin cushions, buildings like 
little block houses, the water like flashing sapphires, 
and the fine cool air! Just as fresh as that in the 
mountains. I went over one little cloud and it 
seemed funny to have a part of the earth look so 
misty and dim and the other stand out so clear in 
the sunlight. And the riding! Just as smooth as 
it can be except when you hit a ‘ bump ’! Really 
you do: it is just as much of a shock as when you 
strike an uneven place in the road with a car.” 

We are told that looping the loop, which looks 
difficult indeed, is a mere kindergarten game. In 
addition, the airman learns to fly upside down, to 
side-slip, tail-slide, nose-dive, and to do countless 
other tricks which are absolutely necessary to his 
success. Then he is taught aerial gunnery. It 
soon becomes mere child’s play for him to hit toy 
balloons loose in the air, in a ten to twenty mile 
wind, at one, two, and three hundred yards, with a 
machine gun! He is then given a final polishing in 
all the arts of aircraft work, and tested as to what 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 63 

he can do best before being sent to the Front. 
One man might make a good pilot, while another’s 
specialty is photography, a third seems best fitted 
for a bomber, or a fighting observer, and a fourth 
would make a good gunner. 

“We soon got used to the drone of the aeroplanes 
at the Front,” says a canteener, “ and quickly learned 
to distinguish the enemy planes from those of the 
Allies. At first, we were all attention when our 
anti-aircraft guns started shelling, and a little tiff 
between our planes and those of the enemy held us 
spell-bound. But it did not last long. Every front¬ 
line trench had its scout planes, and their maneuvers 
were but a part of the daily program.” 

A big part of the work of these scout planes was 
to keep the enemy planes from coming on spying 
expeditions over the Allied lines. German observa¬ 
tion planes usually flew in squadrons, and they 
delighted to dally along, luring the Allied plane into 
range of some one of their carefully hidden bat¬ 
teries, and then slipping away leaving their artillery 
to end the game. The German anti-aircraft crews 
reduced this business to a science. Their guns were 
arranged in batteries. When an Allied plane came 
within range, the first gun threw three shells into 
the air in quick succession. These shells were timed 


64 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

to explode at different elevations, and they gave off 
different colors of smoke. Thus they established 
three fixed altitudes in the air. Usually one of the 
shells burst near the plane, and they were able to 
determine its altitude. Then a second gun took a 
hand. It fired a big explosive shell which would 
wreck the plane if it exploded near enough; but the 
Germans did not figure much on this. Their idea 
was to “ dud ” the air with this shell, that is to 
create air conditions which would make it impossible 
for the plane to dart off. Before the doomed plane 
could recover from the shock, a third gun dis¬ 
charged a heavy shrapnel shell, and some one of the 
six hundred balls which it contained was pretty sure 
to end the affair. 

A pilot of one of the Allied scout planes tells of a 
ruse which a German scout observer worked in an 
attempt to get over the French lines: “ I was 

maneuvering lazily about one day,” says he, “ when 
I noticed above me a plane of a new type. It 
swooped down low enough for me to see the circle 
with the dot inside it on the side of the body. Of 
course, you know the circle is the mark of the Allied 
planes: the German planes bear a Maltese cross. 
The pilot seemed to be circling about over our lines, 
and I thought he might possibly be signaling for 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 65 

assistance, but I could not make out anything for 
certain. I circled upward, and the newcomer 
headed off toward the German lines. I felt certain, 
now, that help was needed, and followed closely. 
Imagine my surprise, when, just as we were well 
within the enemy’s lines, I took stock of the 
stranger once more, and saw that, where an Allied 
circle had shown a few moments before, there was 
now a German cross! I was below the enemy and 
at considerable disadvantage, so I quickly dodged off 
at one side and made for our aerodrome. 

“ A few days later French aviators farther south 
reported the same trick, but we were at a loss to 
know how the enemy could change their crosses to 
circles at will. Then, a German plane was forced to 
land behind our lines. Before the aviator could 
destroy his machine, our men were upon him, and 
on examination, it was found that the cross was 
made of thin metal and fastened upon an axis. This 
was geared by a shaft to the motor, and could be 
connected in a twinkling. Now, you know, a 
Maltese cross whirled rapidly gives off at a little 
distance a fair representation of a circle with a dot 
inside it. This was the secret of the trick. And 
the Germans had used it successfully, no doubt, in 
scores of instances. We at once painted black tips 


66 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


on both wings of all our Allied planes, as a second 
distinguishing mark.” 

Usually it was the pilots and the aerial gunners 
who took part in the battles in mid air, but not 
always. There are no cowards in the air service, 
and the aviators in the great world’s war were often 
forced into positions which required the most cour¬ 
ageous pluck and the quickest wits to save the day. 
On a certain occasion two British machines were 
up on patrol work. One, a double-seater, carried 
an experienced pilot and an observer: the other, a 
young Canadian, on his first flight. The fight 
started, and the Gotha succeeded almost immediately 
in winging the double seater. It began to fall 
slowly. Thereupon the enemy plane swung into 
position to annihilate it before attacking the smaller 
car. The Canadian seemed powerless against the 
monster. He saw that unless he could do something 
at once it was all up with his comrades. So, regard¬ 
less of himself, he drove his machine straight for 
the Gotha, and rammed her. Locked together, both 
planes fell to earth, carrying the combatants to 
instant death. The crippled double-seater managed 
to get down in safety. 

A certain lieutenant was detailed to fly over the 
enemy’s lines, carrying with him an observer to 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 67 

photograph their positions. It was necessary to fly 
low, within range of the Boche anti-aircraft guns. 
Suddenly a shell crashed through the floor of the 
airplane with a terrific shock, and cut off one of the 
lieutenant’s legs just below the knee. For a 
moment the lieutenant was blind and dizzy with 
pain. His machine lurched forward and set out in 
a nose-dive toward the ground. But not for long 
did it continue in its mad course. The lieutenant 
was too game. He mastered his almost mortal 
weakness, righted his machine and drove off out of 
range before his astonished enemies could again 
control their guns. Pursued by shells, and losing 
blood at a fearful rate, he yet managed to volplane 
back to within his own lines, and get his companion 
and the precious photographs to earth unscathed. 

In another instance, two daring pilots were flying 
a long way from their own lines, when they sighted 
two enemy planes and pounced upon them, one of 
them working the machine-gun while the other 
steered. In the fiercest part of the fight, the pilot 
was wounded in the leg, and almost at the same 
instant the petrol tank was pierced by a bullet. 
Somehow they managed to beat off the enemy; then 
the uninjured man, who knew that his companion 
was in danger of bleeding to death before they could 


68 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


land, hastily improvised a tourniquet and passed it 
to his friend with a scribbled note, bidding him fix 
it in place, and then let him take charge of the 
machine. The two men managed the difficult 
change of seats as the aeroplane whirled through the 
air. Then the disabled pilot, after having success¬ 
fully staunched his wound, turned his attention to 
the leaking petrol tank. He pressed his thumb over 
the hole and so managed to stop the leak. In this 
way they got their battered machine back to their 
own lines, and landed in safety. 

Always with the fighting airplanes, height was 
the main object. The higher they could get the 
better. Indeed, among airmen that old senseless 
phrase “ the higher the fewer ” come into its own. 
Twenty-five thousand feet was the ambition of most 
airmen, but only the very best of them attained it. 
Photographers and observers, of course, were forced 
to fly low, often within range of the enemy’s guns. 
Many of the battleplanes used in fighting over the 
trenches were little more than flying cannons. They 
carried but one man and were armed with one or 
two guns, which discharged their bullets between 
the blades of the whirling propeller. 

The most brilliant examples of courtesy and 
chivalry are to be found among the aviators. On 





AIRPLANE DOING "STUNTS 








SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 69 

land and sea the German proved a dirty fighter, but 
in the air he was a true sportsman. Probably the 
reason was that there the war was individual, and a 
man could measure his opponent. A certain Ger¬ 
man aviator had forced many British airmen to 
acknowledge themselves beaten. Then came a 
cocky youngster to camp. “ I’ll get him, ,, he 
declared, and forthwith dropped a challenge over the 
enemy’s lines. The next day the two went up, and 
in the maneuvers for position the German got on 
top. Cries of dismay rose from the British corps. 
Then, as the German dipped to begin fusillading, the 
youngster rose with extraordinary swiftness directly 
beneath his opponent, and opened fire! Down went 
the German machine in flames behind the German 
line. The young Briton followed, dipping, delay¬ 
ing. Everybody expected the anti-aircraft guns to 
get him. But they were silent. Then from the 
youngster’s plane something dropped. It was a 
wreath to the memory of a brave man! 

Working with the infantry as “ air policeman ” 
in a big attack was a most exciting experience. It 
meant that the planes must fly close to the ground, 
passing constantly back and forth through the shells 
of their own side as well as those of the enemy, 
keeping the troops advised of the foe’s movements 


7 o 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


and thus enabling them to break up their projects 
before they got them fairly launched. In addition 
to serving as spies and messengers, the planes 
swooped low over the enemy, raking them with their 
machine-guns and dropping high explosive bombs in 
their midst. 

A master flier, telling of his experiences in the 
snow-laden skies above the Battle of Arras, one of 
the tensest, grimmest struggles of the entire world 
war, says that he felt as though he were in another 
sphere looking down on a strange, uncanny puppet 
show. He saw the men go over the top of their 
front-line parapets in a thin line and stroll casually 
toward the enemy. He wondered why they did not 
wake up and run. They were moving altogether too 
slow. Surely they did not realize their danger! 
Here and there a shell would burst as the line 
advanced, and three or four men would topple over 
like so many tin soldiers. Up from the rear the 
stretcher-bearers would hasten to bear away the 
wounded and dying. And still the line moved for¬ 
ward —a row of little brown figures playing a 
game, as it seemed. He told himself they were 
men going to the glory of victory or to the glory 
of death, but he could not make it sound real. And 
so he hovered above them in the early dawn, like a 
man in a dream, watching and waiting. 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 71 

It was the sudden rattle of a nest of machine 
guns beneath him that galvanized the scene into life. 
He saw the line grow terribly thin at one point, and 
then in a twinkling all the men had flung themselves 
upon the ground. He looked down. A group of 
five men in a German trench just beneath him were 
operating two machine-guns and their destruction 
was terrible. In an instant he was upon them with 
a burst of rapid fire, going so near that every detail 
of their frightened faces was visible as he swept 
over them, pouring down a rain of explosives. He 
heard the cheer that broke from the infantry 
acknowledging his championship, and henceforth the 
scene was real enough. For he was a vital part of 
it. He patrolled the line so watchfully and so suc¬ 
cessfully that the infantry were able to take all the 
German positions they had set out to get. 

Perhaps you may have seen a tiny kingbird put 
to flight a fierce hawk or a giant eagle. How boldly 
and fiercely the valiant little fellow pounces upon the 
enemy! His quick darts baffle his foe and wear him 
out, while he keeps clear of his adversary. His are 
tactics of the successful men of the air. Indeed, 
so cleverly has Lieutenant Rene Fonck copied the 
little feathered foeman’s quick eye, his suppleness 
and his blinding speed at the exact instant needed, 


72 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


that he has been styled “ the kingbird of the French 
aviators.” Lieutenant Fonck fought the Germans 
singly, in pairs, and in flocks. He darted at them 
from the clouds and baffled them with his speed; then 
a quick shot from his never-failing machine-gun and 
the flight was over. France had loaded Fonck down 
with medals even before the marvelous exploit that 
put him above all in aviation, the avenging of the 
death of Guynemer, hero of France’s airmen. 

The record of this feat is typical of all Fonck’s 
air tactics. Along the Belgian front, Lieutenant 
Wissemann, the victorious Boche aviator, was 
spreading terror among the airmen. “ I have just 
vanquished the most redoutable of our enemies,” 
he wrote to his family. “ I have shot down the 
famous French captain, Guynemer. Now I have 
nothing more to fear.” But Wissemann had reck¬ 
oned without Fonck. That intrepid little “ king¬ 
bird ” was playing about in the clouds, one day, some 
six thousand meters above the ground. Below him 
flew a patrol of eight French aviators. Suddenly a 
great Rumpler biplane, glistening and splendid, 
swooped from the clouds to send the patrol to 
destruction. The enemy’s machine was several 
times the size of Fonck’s own. But he did not hesi¬ 
tate. Straight toward the foe he drove with one 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 73 

of his most furious bursts of speed. The proud 
German was Tull of confidence. He, too, put on all 
speed toward the rushing Frenchman, and fired a 
volley from his machine-gun. But the shot went 
wide of its mark. Like a humming bird dodging a 
branch, Fonck’s splendid little plane glided beneath 
the great Rumpler and slid off to the rear. As it 
went the Frenchman’s machine-gun spoke his most 
accurate compliments, and the boastful German 
plunged downward. Guynemer was gloriously 
avenged. 

“ I am not a blood-thirsty person,” writes William 
A. Bishop, a peer among the British airmen, “ but I 
must say that to see an enemy going down in flames 
is a source of great satisfaction. You know his 
destruction is absolutely certain. The moment you 
see the fire break out you know that nothing in the 
world can save the man or men in the doomed aero¬ 
plane. You know there is no camouflage in this, 
and you have no fear that the enemy is trying any 
kind of flying trick in the hope that he will be let 
alone.” 

Sometimes the “ tricks of the flying trade ” have 
in them no little humor. Here is one which a 
British airman dubbed “ the best joke of the sum¬ 
mer.” Like all war jokes, however, it had its grim 
side. 


74 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


A young officer had chased an inquisitive Ger¬ 
man machine almost to its hangar. Suddenly his 
engine began to miss and sputter and then quit. 
He came down beside a German camp, and was 
quickly marched to headquarters. The young pilot 
was Irish and fully equal to the emergency. The 
officer in command put him through a course of 
“ pumping,” and received thoroughly tactful 
answers, as became a true son of Erin. “ The 
things they didn't learn from me were many,” he 
reported later to his chief. But his obliging sin¬ 
cerity and garrulity made an impression! They 
wanted some photographs of the English trenches, 
and they were decidedly short on airships. Indeed, 
at the moment, there was not one fit for service. 
So they decided to send the pilot back over his lines 
with a photographer. 

The mechanics overhauled the plane thoroughly, 
then a German officer appeared with a big revolver 
and the young man was ordered into the pilot’s 
seat. The cameras were set, and the officer took 
his place. “ Make about 2,000 feet,” he ordered, 
“ and, remember, any treacherous move will be your 
last.” 

The plane rose like a bird. Scarcely were they 
over the British lines when a cloud of shrapnel burst 


SOMETHING ABOUT AIRMEN 75 

just in front of them. “ Higher,” yelled the officer 
sharply. The pilot let his machine out and they 
went up at a breath-taking rate. Presently the 
officer shoved a paper in front of the pilot’s nose. 
“ High enough,” it read. “ Begin to go down.” 
The Irishman obeyed with promptness. He side¬ 
slipped a thousand feet and turned somersaults and 
spun down again so quickly that the plane creaked 
like a ship in a gale. 

Why didn’t the officer shoot? 

He did. But not at the pilot. He didn’t have 
time. He shot out of the fuselage at her second 
somersault, and struck in a gravel-bank head-first 
near the Ypres Comines Canal. “ I think,” records 
the officer, “ that he is the only man I ever knew 
who killed and buried himself and erected his own 
tombstone. Everybody in the line went out to look 
at his one boot which was left sticking straight up 
out of the gravel.” 


VI 


The Camera as a Weapon 

When we hear of a battle between birdmen two 
or three miles above the lines, we are so carried away 
by the thought of that duel above the clouds, and the 
horrors of what defeat in such a contest means, that 
we are apt to overlook entirely the real work of the 
planes. To our minds, the famous fighting pilot — 
the “Ace” as the French call him — is an adven¬ 
turous roving warrior of the skies, who sought aerial 
combat solely for the glory and the joy of it; when 
he downed his enemy he accomplished his purpose. 
How far we are wide of the mark may best be 
judged by questioning those who have seen active 
service at the Front, about the use of the airplane 
in war. 

Suppose we ask an artillery officer. He will tell 
us of the airmans service in directing shell fire. 
The infantry man who has gone over the top 
answers our question with a graphic picture of the 
76 


THE CAMERA AS A WEAPON 77 

airman as a guardian angel, flying above the 
advancing troops. The propagandist says that the 
chief service of the airman in the great world’s war 
lay in dropping “ paper ” bombs into the enemy 
trenches. These bombs, you know, were showers 
of leaflets, printed in German. They toki the rank 
and file of the enemy all «the war news which his 
government tried to keep from him. 

A bombing officer of the Royal Flying Squadron 
whose object is to destroy gun positions, ammuni¬ 
tion dumps, and other strategic military points, 
regards his work as chief among the services of the 
airplane. A brother officer who works in the 
defense corps details the value of the planes in keep¬ 
ing off German air raiders. So it goes all along 
the line. We get a pretty fair understanding of the 
oft-quoted expression that “ control of the air means 
control of the ground.” But it is not until we put 
our question to a general staff officer that we get 
what seems the most logical answer. 

“ The most important service of the airplane,” he 
answers, “ is to serve as an eye for the commanding 
officers. An aerial bomber may destroy points of 
the utmost importance, a flyer may save his regi¬ 
ment, likewise other members of the force may per¬ 
form distinctive services, but an aerial observer by 


78 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

turning in timely information may save a whole 
army from destruction. Likewise, too, he may be 
the instrument for visiting destruction upon the 
army of the enemy.” 

The staff officer goes on to give several examples 
in proof of his assertion. Here is one of them. In 
July, 1917, the French commenced a great offensive 
in Flanders. For eight days a furious rain of shot 
and shell swept the enemy, then the infantry went 
over. Success attended them all along the line, but 
presently it began to rain and for three days the very 
flood-gates of Heaven seemed loosened. The roads 
and fields were impassable. No amount of ingenuity 
could conjure a way to move the heavy artillery. 
The airplanes could not make their flights because 
of the general murkiness. The army simply had to 
wait in blindness. On the fourth day the dawn 
broke clear, and the French birdmen took to the 
air. Back of the German front they saw swarms of 
gray backs unloading from trains. The roads every¬ 
where were jammed with transports. The bad 
weather had given the enemy time to bring up rein¬ 
forcements. Obviously the French would be the 
losers if they pressed the attack. Thanks to the 
information gleaned by the airmen the offense was 
abandoned, and the reserve troops back of the 


THE CAMERA AS A WEAPON 79 

French lines were hurried to Verdun, where they 
attacked and were victorious. 

When the war broke out, the French were already 
convinced that the airplanes would prove the best 
possible eyes for the army, and they at once fitted 
some out for observation work. These were heavy, 
slow-moving machines, and the Germans quickly 
instituted fast-flying aircrafts to run them down. 
The Allies countered by building still faster ones to 
fight back, and to act as convoys to the observation 
planes — precisely as destroyers and battle cruisers 
act as convoys to transports. So the race went on 
with the progress of the war. The French have 
been proud of their wondrous Aces, but the staff 
officers, at least, have never for a moment considered 
them the “ whole show.” Young, clear-eyed, alert 
and intrepid, the very ideal of manhood, and a hero 
among heroes, the young pilot stands as a winged 
D’Artagnan— a guardsman to the king, who is 
none other than the observer. Speaking in football 
terms, the fighter — the Ace — is the interference; 
the observer is the man who runs with the ball. 
Only his “ ball ” is a camera. 

Aero-photography begins where the most skillful 
studio course ends. The subject at the outset in 
this war promised to be wonderfully interesting, and 


8o 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


some of our most clever photographers quickly 
rallied to the call. Nor were they disappointed in 
the course. Not so much actual experience is neces¬ 
sary in taking pictures from planes, but there is 
need of expert post-graduates at the aviation camps, 
where developing, printing and enlarging is done. 
Here the importance of perfect work is very great; 
a dot no bigger than a pin point, or a splotch from 
chemicals may mean volumes. Always the clearer 
the print the better it is for official purposes, because 
often it is not so much the picture itself, as what is 
deduced from the picture that is important. 

Sherlock Holmes had nothing on the men in khaki 
and in blue whose duty it is to interpret aerial pic¬ 
tures for the staff. Photographic detectives they 
are. What stimulating sport! More wizard than 
man are the most expert ones; some of their deduc¬ 
tions are positively staggering. Here is an instance: 
A birdman came in with the photograph of a 
familiar “ front yard ” of a German sector. It was 
not expected that anything new would develop here. 
The birdman merely included it in his collection as 
a matter of course. It was part of his daily beat, 
which he covered as regularly as the policeman or 
the watchman does his rounds. 

But when that particular print came into the 


THE CAMERA AS A WEAPON 81 


hands of the expert, his face settled in grim lines 
and he studied it attentively. There were two small 
spots at one side — careless developing you would 
have said. But careless developing is not allowed 
at the Front. No, sir, those spots meant something! 
The expert turned to his complete photographic map 
of that locality and studied the marginal notes. 
Then his face brightened. It was as plain to him 
as a pikestaff. 

“ Call Tank C. O. No. 3,” he said briefly to his 
assistant. “ Tell him not to go calling on the Ger¬ 
mans in his terrain by his customary route the next 
time. Mines.” 

Just so! 

In another instance, a French town held by the 
Germans had been shot to pieces by Allied artillery. 
On a certain day, a photograph of the place showed 
a roof on a house that had long been roofless. The 
Huns never bothered about repairs, unless to satisfy 
their own selfish ends. Hence the query: What 
was under that roof? A scout found out. It was 
a heavy gun. 

Sometimes the photographs of a certain point, 
from day to day, portray a joke as rich as any 
cartoon. Like all war jokes, however, they have 
their grim sides. Here is a typical series: Picture 


82 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


No. i shows the commencement of an important 
military construction back of the German line. No. 
2 bristles with anti-aircraft guns which have been 
set up to keep off enemy observers. That these were 
unsuccessful is proved by the succeeding pictures. 
Birdmen have plenty of nerve; it is one of their 
largest stocks in trade. If the first observer failed 
to return with a photograph in a reasonable time, a 
second went out, and if need be a third, and so on 
until their object was attained, or they had orders 
to desist. Frequently the second man passed over 
the tragic spot where lay his fallen comrade’s 
wrecked machine. He got a picture of it as he 
went. 

Photographs 3, 4, and 5 show the work at dif¬ 
ferent stages of development; No. 6 shows its com¬ 
pletion and the work of camouflage begun; the next 
photograph shows merely a faint blur — the 
camouflage is a grand success; now follows a photo¬ 
graph showing a white, ragged ball of cotton 
directly above the carefully hidden spot; the ninth, 
and final photograph, is simply a great black hole 
in the ground with ruin and desolation all about. 
That is where the joke comes in! Instead of polish¬ 
ing off the enemy when the work was first begun, 
the Allies had the sport of watching them struggle to 


THE CAMERA AS A WEAPON 83 

carry on the undertaking to a successful finish, and 
then boom! the work of days disappeared in the 
twinkling of an eye! 

A complete working photograph of a sector is a 
wonderful piece of work. Hundreds of snapshots 
go to make it, and these are carefully fitted together, 
section by section, until at last is procured a picture 
of the whole enemy’s defenses from flank to flank. 
Daily the picture is worked over and corrected; for 
the scene is constantly changing. So swift is prog¬ 
ress in the busy sectors, that a photograph taken just 
at sunset can hardly be identified with one of the 
same sector taken next morning at dawn. Fresh 
lines of trenches run here and yonder, there are blurs 
showing new wire entanglements, spots marking 
additional shell craters, and what not. Perhaps a 
clump of trees or an old dead stump may have ap¬ 
peared over night! Neat camouflages they are, 
straight from the camouflage base at the rear, where 
such things are manufactured. They conceal a 
sniper’s post or a lookout station, and are quite 
clever enough to get by all but the most careful 
experts. 

Photographic observations have many advantages 
over observations made by the eye. In the first 
place, the camera takes impartially everything that 


84 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

comes within its range of vision. Nothing is over¬ 
looked. Objects on the edge of the photograph are 
as clear as those near the center. Instead of a quick 
and hurried glimpse under high pressure, as was 
the case when the plane was under fire, the camera 
carries away a careful record that can be enlarged 
and studied at leisure in a place of safety. The 
camera eye is also much sharper than the eye of man. 
It records things that the human eye would not 
detect, and often it is just these little things that 
are the only important items in a war picture. 

The airplane must be as level as possible when a 
snapshot is taken. Always the observer endeavors 
to get directly above his objective. But during hos¬ 
tilities this was not easy. While the pilot maneu¬ 
vered for position, the Archies (anti-aircraft guns) 
were getting a line on him. Shells burst closely 
round the plane, on this side and on that, beneath 
and above. Dodging and turning, the driver would 
endeavor to keep a level course. If the thing were 
impossible, he shot upward, and the picture was 
snapped from a higher elevation. The negative was 
then worked over and brought to the desired scale 
at the developing station. 

It was a delicate operation. For it must be 
remembered that the photograph was probably not 


THE CAMERA AS A WEAPON 85 

to be considered as an individual print. It was a 
tiny fragment of a larger print which was to make 
up the photographic map of that sector. It had to 
tally and interlock with the surrounding piecework 
as accurately as the parts of a picture puzzle. 

By putting into the hands of the commanding 
officers all the details of the affairs behind the 
enemy’s lines, the camera became more than the eye 
of the army, it was a most effective weapon. The 
hand that controlled it needed to be as purposeful 
and steady as if it held a rifle. The mind that inter¬ 
preted its intricacies could not be too clear and 
all-seeing. 


VII 


Manning the Guns 

You have frequently heard it said, that the great 
world war was a war of artillery. And you know 
that this is true. When the war began, Germany 
won because of the superiority of her guns. Soon 
the situation was reversed. In some places our 
artillery fired one hundred shells to one thrown by 
the Germans. The number of our guns at the close 
of the war was so great that if the guns and caissons 
were put wheel to wheel, they would make a solid 
line longer than the Front itself. It is simply impos¬ 
sible to imagine the number of shells that were 
thrown in a single day. In the Battle of the Somme, 
for instance, on a four-mile front in a single attack, 
some three thousand shells were thrown by the 
British. 

Perhaps you may have pictured the guns bristling 
and belching all along the parapets of the front line 
trenches, with the gunners taking careful aim, sight- 
86 



JVtfc- l 


ARTILLERY CAMOUFLAGED 









MANNING THE GUNS 


87 

ing much as you would sight a rifle, and every shot 
counting a murderous toll. Nothing of that sort 
really happened. On the front in the great war 
there was no such thing as direct fire. Figure it out 
for yourself. If the guns stood out fair and square 
in front of the enemy, it would have been a case of 
dog eat dog. And Heaven help the poor gunners! 

Concealment was necessary. So the guns along 
the Front were all camouflaged and hidden as care¬ 
fully as possible in the woods, behind hills and 
embankments, or in emplacements under ground, 
where the gunners could not see what they were 
firing at. The range and direction were determined 
for them by an observer, who communicated by tele¬ 
phone, wireless, or signals according to his location. 
Often the target was from six to twenty miles away. 

The “ ground ” observer, that is an observer with 
an observing post located on the ground, usually 
directed only the light artillery, “ the seventy-fives.” 
His field was the barbed wire and advanced posts 
and the enemy first line. His equipment consisted 
of a pair of field glasses and a telephone, connected 
with the battery which he directed. His post might 
have been in the front line trenches, or in a dugout 
a bit in advance of them and connected by a com¬ 
municating trench. Again perhaps it was back on a 


88 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


hill, or in a tree top. Any position which offered a 
good view of the enemy, and was not in itself too 
exposed, might be used for observation work. 

When the Germans set out in their great drive 
toward Paris in the early months of the war, they 
selected and fortified an almost continuous line of 
hills behind their advance, on which they could fall 
back if necessary. The necessity came with their 
defeat on the Marne. Selected and especially pre¬ 
pared for defense as these retreats had been, it was 
difficult to dislodge the Germans from them. Not 
only because it was hard for the Allied infantry to 
charge up the hills, but because of the advantages 
which the high ground offered to- the enemy 
observers. For the possession of Vimy Ridge, an 
irregular series of observation knolls along a ten 
mile front, the British fought for two months. No 
less than- six major offensives were made there, and 
countless lives were lost in an attenfpt to take the 
position. It was finally stormed by the Canadian 
troops in a marvelous victory. Dead Man’s Hill 
and the Plateau of Craonne were other strategic 
observation points along the Somme where the Allied 
forces lost thousands of men without being able to 
see a single German. These posts were overcome 
only after the most terrific fighting. On every battle 


MANNING THE GUNS 89 

ground the points that are of the most importance 
for observation posts are the ones most fiercely 
contested. 

When the battery commander received orders to 
begin action, he called the artillery observer by tele¬ 
phone and told, him the positions that were to be 
shelled. The battery captain had a scale map of the 
position and the supposed range, so that he was able 
to place his first shell pretty close to the mark. The 
observer watched narrowly. Suppose the shell fell 
thirty meters short of the mark, and fifteen meters 
to the right. Immediately he called into the trans¬ 
mitter “ thirty short, fifteen right.” The battery 
commander at once moved the target to cover the 
corrections. And he had to be an expert mathe¬ 
matician to do it; for the corrections were usually 
nowhere near as simple as they sound. They 
involved a lot of metrical calculations, and he had 
to be able to solve them instantly. Ordinarily the 
guns were fired by batteries, instead of singly. 
Most of the Allied batteries had four guns, and the 
Germans six. The battery guns did not all speak 
at once. They were numbered and fired in rapid 
succession, so closely that the observer could not call 
corrections after each one. He waited until the 
salvo was finished, then gave his corrections on all 


90 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


four. After the firing was well-established, he 
called corrections only on those which missed. 

Much observation work was done from captive 
balloons. One might see a score or more of these 
odd sausage shapes floating idly in almost every 
direction. Besides being used to direct artillery fire 
these balloons were used for general observation. 
The observer in the basket beneath kept careful 
watch of all that was out of range of the observer 
in the ground post. He scanned the roads behind 
the enemy lines, took note of all trains, and traffic 
of every description, and carefully reported any 
unusual activity. 

In directing artillery fire the balloon observer 
worked in the same way as the ground man. But 
his lot was infinitely harder. Crowded in among 
his maps and instruments he had no chance to stretch 
his limbs, and in fair, summer weather he often 
remained on duty sixteen hours. Of course, an 
observer was never sent up two days in succession. 
He could not stand the strain. In winter, it was so 
cold that the observer would be frozen if left up all 
day. So the balloon was hauled down at frequent 
intervals and another man took his place. Always 
the balloon observer’s job was hard and unpleasant, 
by reason of the nauseating dipping and bobbing of 


MANNING THE GUNS 


9i 


the balloon at its cable, and it was also particularly 
dangerous. The bag offered a tempting mark for 
the enemy’s artillery, and there was a chance that the 
cable might break. Another danger, and by far the 
greatest of all, was that encountered at the hands of 
enemy aeroplanes. 

For the work of destroying balloons, planes were 
supplied with special balls fired from a machine- 
gun, or with tubes from which rockets were dis¬ 
charged. The rockets were much like those we use 
for peace celebrations. The tubes were fastened to 
.he frame of the plane, and the airman dived towards 
the balloon. As soon as he came within range, he 
pressed an electric button, and presto! the rocket 
sped forth on its deadly mission. If it struck the 
balloon, it fired the hydrogen gas with which the 
great bag was inflated. 

It was customary before an attack to put down as 
many of the enemy’s balloons as possible. In the 
beginning of the Allied offensive on the Somme, six¬ 
teen German artillery observers were shot down in 
three hours. After that, it is said that the enemy 
observers became so nervous that they took to their 
parachutes the moment an Allied plane hove in sight! 

But the German artillery observers were not the 
only ones to have their balloons shot down. Here 


92 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


is a story told by a young American photographic 
observer in a French escadrille. “ Only a few days 
ago,” he says, “ profiting by an especially favorable 
condition of the clouds which permitted them to 
swoop close upon us without being seen, the enemy 
raided the balloons in our sector and shot down four 
of them. The observers immediately took to their 
parachutes, and three of them landed in safety. 
The fourth, a capable young lieutenant of artillery, 
was caught beneath his flaming balloon and burned 
to death. One of the Boche airmen, while trying 
to put down another balloon, was charged upon by 
one of our planes. A short struggle followed, and 
the machines were so badly damaged that they had 
to come to the ground. The German was taken 
prisoner. But he very nearly accomplished his 
mission. The balloon was so badly riddled that it 
had to be taken down and mended.” 

Like the ground observer, the balloonist directed 
the fire of the smaller field-guns. His range was 
the second-line trenches and the communications 
leading to them. The heavy guns with a range of 
ten or fifteen miles, which were located far in the 
rear of the lines, dropped their shells beyond the 
vision of the balloon observer. They shelled the big 
guns of the enemy, the roads and communicating 



ARTILLERY IN ACTION 






MANNING THE GUNS 


93 


trenches, and the territory to the rear of the first 
lines. Their firing was directed from reconnais¬ 
sance airplanes. Usually the balloonists performed 
their work at the height of half a mile. The airmen 
went up double that distance. 

Always it was a good deal of a task to locate the 
enemy guns. So successfully were they camou¬ 
flaged that they could be discovered only by getting 
directly above them. Before an attack was begun, 
a certain class of reconnaissance birdmen, who 
served as the eyes of the commanding officers, went 
on a still hunt for the enemy’s guns. They made 
careful photographs or maps of Fritz’s lines. The 
location of headquarters, the placement of men, 
guns, and munitions, all were carefully set down to 
the very minutest detail. Not a thing was over¬ 
looked that could by any chance be of service. 

The colonel of artillery laid out the work for his 
regiment. When all was ready the birdmen were 
called, sometimes by telephone, but oftener by a 
motorcycle courier who ran out to the aviation field 
with the message. The order simply stated that 
certain batteries were to bombard certain enemy 
bombardments at a given time. The observers at 
once notified their pilots. Each man, of course, 
knew his own battery and the number of the enemy’s 


94 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


battery against which he was to direct shelling. He 
went to his files and got a photograph of that sec¬ 
tor. The picture showed about a half a square mile 
of territory, and, with the notes which accompanied 
it, served as a very complete chart of that particular 
locality. 

In the meantime, while the observers were making 
their preparations, all was activity at the hangar. 
The aeroplanes were run out on the field, and crews 
of mechanics were busy testing the motors, the guns, 
and the wireless outfits. The pilots, too, made their 
brief preparations, and each man stood waiting to 
climb into his seat as soon as he had received orders 
from his observer. It was necessary that he thor¬ 
oughly ur lerstand what was expected of him, for 
not all planes were supplied with telephone outfits, 
and once the motor was set going, its roar would 
prevent any communication between the pilot and 
observer, except by signs or in writing. 

The instant the birdmen came within range of the 
enemy anti-aircraft guns, trouble began. Shells 
burst about them by the score. But an aeroplane 
up a mile high is a very small target. Usually the 
pilot was able to spoil the gunner’s aim and dodge 
the shells by zigzagging sharply from right to left 
in his course. Sometimes the observer could see the 


MANNING THE GUNS 


95 


battery before he got above it, but usually it was 
necessary for the plane to circle around several times 
to get just the right view. And all the time the 
enemy's guns were working furiously. 

“ In a brief ten minutes, we have had as many 
as fifty shells explode unpleasantly near us, not 
counting double that number that went wide,” says 
an aviator artillery observer. “We have had our 
wireless dynamo smashed and our machine damaged, 
and once came home with only half the cylinders 
working, because a piece of shell had cut away 
the ignition wires.” 

Once the observer got into view of his battery's 
target, he touched his wireless key, and back flashed 
the message “ A. D. S. Fire! ” The response was 
prompt. Before the pilot could head his machine 
toward home, great belches of smoke rose from the 
marked position on the ground below, showing 
where the shells from the Allied battery had landed. 
It was a wonderful spectacle, but the observer 
scarcely gave it a glance. He was busy calculat¬ 
ing how much, if any, the shells had gone wide of 
their mark, making data on the pad attached to the 
map-board fastened in front of him, and flashing 
his corrections. 

If the wigwaggers at the station got the message, 


96 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

“ Understood ” was coded back. If all was not 
clear, they sent “ Repeat/’ and then “ Under¬ 
stood.” The pilot, then, headed back toward the 
enemy, but he hovered an instant until “ Go ” came 
from the sheets. Then back they raced to repeat 
the same maneuvers, and to withstand additional 
perils. Occasionally the observer saw something 
which offered a better target than the enemy’s bat¬ 
tery,— a line of troops, perhaps, or an ammunition 
train. Immediately he wired, “ A. D. S. Change 
Objective.” Then followed the numbers which in¬ 
dicated the new range. By referring to the numbers 
on his map, the battery commander could determine 
the line of the target, just as you would pick out a 
given place on the map by its latitude and longitude. 
He might or might not be able to determine just 
what was to be shelled. If the number indicated a 
road, he had, of course, a pretty definite idea. Sup¬ 
pose, for example, that the objective was a line of 
troops; the observer had to do some very careful 
reckoning. He had to figure how long it would 
take to change the target, and just how far the men 
would have advanced in that time. If he got it 
right, the official communication of the affair read, 
“A column of the enemy’s infantry was dispersed 
by our fire.” 


MANNING THE GUNS 


97 


In an offensive a great deal depended upon the 
aviator artillery observers, for not only must the 
waves of shell fire blast the way for the waves of 
infantry, but the big guns must follow up. The 
boys wanted to feel them comfortingly near. Of¬ 
ficials spoke of this as the “ morale of artillery sup¬ 
port for the infantry.” When ground was gained it 
was the big guns which held it with curtains of fire. 
Their shells fell with the accuracy of a stream of 
water from a hose. 

Artillery fire made the most spectacular perform¬ 
ance, but it was the little machine-guns, “ the type¬ 
writers,” which did the most execution. They did 
not have to register as the big guns did with practice 
bursts. They were crafty, patient, biding their time 
as the relentless tiger in the jungle. For a week, a 
machine-gun might remain silent in order to gain 
the delights of five minutes’ savage onslaught. 
Once it began to rattle against a company front in 
a charge, the men must seek cover, or die in their 
tracks. 

“ Get the machine-guns,” was the order which 
preceded an offensive everywhere on the Front. It 
meant crawling up at night stealthily from shell 
crater to shell crater to locate them. Then, if the 
guns and trench mortars did not succeed in silencing 


98 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

them, a storming party must go stalking with bombs. 
Arnold Von Winkleried, who bared his breast for 
the spears of the foe, in order to make a path for 
his comrades, had his counterpart over and over in 
the lads who went out to silence a machine-gun, and 
were themselves found lying dead across the gun 
with the gun’s crew stilled forever beside them. 

“ Like the love of a master for his dog is the love 
of an army gunner for his machine-gun,” says Cap¬ 
tain Corcoran. “ He grooms it, feeds it, doctors it, 
not as a duty but as a matter of devotion. And, 
when it comes to dying, he sticks to it as men stick 
only to the thing in which they have absolute trust.” 

There is an old song concerning “ A little pa¬ 
tience and a lot of love,” to help us do our duty. 
Certainly the boys at the guns had these qualities 
without stint. It was love for the cause, their fam¬ 
ily, and their pals that helped them to die so glori¬ 
ously. And here is a story that proves it: The 
Boches had set to work to destroy a certain sector of 
artillery. After shelling the batteries for hours, 
they suddenly clapped a heavy gas-barrage upon 
them, and then turned loose on the trenches with 
everything they had. Immediately S. O. S. rockets 
began to go up all along the front lines, calling for 
aid in their extremity, and all unconscious how 


MANNING THE GUNS 


99 


heavily the artillery itself was beset. What was 
to be done? The men at the guns knew that 
their comrades in the infantry would soon be at the 
mercy of the Huns, if they did not respond; yet it 
was impossible to render any real service in their 
gas masks — the layers and the fuse-setters can not 
do their work with accuracy when so hampered. 
And there must be one of these men at each gun! If 
the infantry were to be saved, it meant that in every 
gun crew two men must work without their masks. 
Instantly, without waiting for orders, the gas masks 
of the layers and fuse-setters came off, and the guns 
opened up. The unmasked men lasted about twenty 
minutes, in the terrible choking gas. When they 
were dragged out of the gun-pit two others took 
their places without an instant’s hesitation. For 
nearly two hours this martyrdom went on, so that 
the infantry might be saved. 

Back among the bases were several artillery 
schools where gun crews were trained. At Limoges 
was a wonderful school for turning out heavy-artil¬ 
lery experts. Here the boys did practical field ar¬ 
tillery work. In one field they banged away con¬ 
tinually with hand grenades and Stokes mortars, in 
another they practised wireless, in still another 
they did all sorts of stunts with caterpillar tractors, 


lOO 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


— the engines which were used to haul the big guns. 
In another field great howitzers in battery formation 
lifted their black snouts heavenward to bugle sig¬ 
nals. Like some wicked-looking, prehistoric beasts 
they were, with thick necks and puffed out throats. 
Farther on were being considered such problems as 
getting a howitzer down into battery position in a 
steep ravine. An officer kept tab, and when any 
mistake was made which might mean much in real 
action, the blunderer was marked down accordingly. 
With such judicious training, by men who had been 
on the Front and knew just what was required in 
daily action, manning the guns was reduced to a 
real science. Nothing was left to chance. 









VIII 

The Army Engineers 

When we consider the long lines of trenches 
which stretched across France— from the Channel 
on the north to the Swiss border on the south — we 
face something of the problems of the engineering 
corps. Not only did they direct the building of 
these trenches, but to them fell all manner of con¬ 
struction work. They built camps, supply depots, 
roads, bridges, water-works, light-plants, railroads, 
and what not. And they did it all secure in the be¬ 
lief that any job they were given in France would be 
small in comparison to what they had done else¬ 
where. 

There were men in the engineering forces “ over 
there ” who helped build the Panama Canal. 
Others had built bridges across great rivers in 
Alaska, laid rails over the Rockies, built great reser¬ 
voirs and dams in the arid southwest, and per¬ 
formed all sorts of engineering feats in China, Af- 


IOI 


102 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


rica, Russia, and other parts of the world. They 
were backed by some of the best organizing brains 
in America. A certain colonel of the army engi¬ 
neers was head of one of our largest marble indus¬ 
tries ; another had been vice-president of a great rail¬ 
road; still another was formerly Controller of the 
Currency. A one-time general manager of the 
Southern Pacific served as major; the engineer who 
built the aqueducts over the keys of the Florida 
Coast railroad was a captain; a sergeant left vacant 
the office of general manager in one of our biggest 
fishing companies; a banker, whose salary in peace 
times was $150,000, directed the running of a gang 
of negroes whose job it was to shovel sand into 
cars. Was it to be expected that such men would 
stick at any problem? No, indeed. The fact that 
most of their material had to be transported three 
thousand miles across the sea only gave zest to their 
work. 

Let us look at some of the things these men* did. 
A certain little port in France became necessary to 
the Americans — a port so small that only coast ves¬ 
sels and ocean-going tramps ever visited it. The 
engineers fell to work to enlarge it, and today it is 
one of the finest ports in Europe. The harbor basin 
was made fifty times larger. A railroad yard con- 


THE ARMY ENGINEERS 


103 


taining two hundred and twenty-five miles of track 
and eight hundred and seventy switches was estab¬ 
lished. A great locomotive works was built. 

American engineers went into the French forests 
and performed the work of our own northwestern 
timber pioneers. And there was no loitering on the 
job! Back at the big supply station, where we 
looked upon the great stacks of food for a million 
men, many of the cross pieces in the shed roofs were 
still sweating, proving that it was only a few days 
since they had been cut down in the near-by woods. 
Some of the buildings had been commenced with 
one material and finished with another. And none 
of them looked as though it had been built to 
stand for a great while. “ They were built in a race 
against time,” said the officer, who showed us 
around. “ But,” he added, with a twinkle in his 
eyes, “ they are plenty good enough to last four 
years.” Aye! The engineers worked to win, and 
they calculated their labors to a nicety; some of 
these are now disappearing almost over night, others 
like the port we have mentioned, will stand as mod¬ 
els of American progress and dispatch for all Time. 

Not the least of the permanent projects of the 
American army engineers were their irrigation and 
drainage feats, and the incidental reclaiming of ag- 


104 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

ricultural lands. No mixture of earth can behave 
like the mud of Flanders. It frequently took no 
end of ingenuity to lay a road to the trenches for 
the supply ammunition trains. Some of these were 
often nothing more than floating timbers and ties 
strung along in the fashion of a suspension bridge, 
and held together by strips of rails that wound in 
and out and across shell holes and craters. A heav¬ 
ily loaded ammunition -train sometimes sank a hun¬ 
dred yards or more of the track into the oozing, 
slimy ground; and the army engineers and their 
crews had to build it up before another train came. 
And they could not be particular in their choice of 
material: cement from German “ pill-boxes/’ old 
guns and broken-down autos, exploded shell cases, 
and even battered steel helmets were often made to 
serve. 

On a certain occasion, a shell explosion turned a 
rapid mountain stream from its bed, hurled it across 
the railroad, and into a new course down an aban¬ 
doned trench. A heavy ammunition train was ex¬ 
pected hourly, and a bridge must be built at once. 
That would not have been a difficult problem, if 
there had been any sort of bridge-building material 
at hand. The railway officer of the sector, a keen¬ 
eyed young Canadian, was face to face with the im- 


THE ARMY ENGINEERS 105 

possible, but he was game. He had to build a 
bridge, material or no material. Down the road 
a mile or so was an old disabled tank, a great steel 
monster, with its gray sides all flecked and crim¬ 
soned with the blood of countless Huns. Surely it 
might be made to do one more service for Liberty! 
The engineer had it dragged up and dumped into the 
ditch. Road planks were then nailed to the top of 
it, and upon these he laid rails to unite with the track 
on either side, and behold! a perfectly serviceable 
bridge. Three trainloads of heavy tractors, and 
cars laden with tons of ammunition passed over in 
safety. Then came half a dozen tanks going for¬ 
ward into action, and their broken brother bore them 
up, too. For two months it stood staunchly, then 
the progress of the army necessitated the shifting of 
the railroad, and the old tank-bridge was left to set¬ 
tle in the mire. 

Taken all in all, perhaps no activity of the Ameri¬ 
can engineers made so profound an impression upon 
France as the work of the regiments of railroad 
men. When the first American locomotive reached 
her docks, a large force of our engineers was on 
hand to welcome it. Many French engineers and 
railroad men watched its unloading. As the parts 
reached the wharves, American workmen flung them 


io6 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


together with a quickness that amazed the onlookers. 
Another section of men laid a track from the dock to 
the main line. It would have taken the foreign 
workmen several days for the combined task, but in 
a few hours the Americans had laid the track, assem¬ 
bled the engine, got up steam, and tooted their 
farewell. 

The destination of that first American locomotive 
in France was a sector filled with American troops. 
Perhaps you can imagine how good the familiar 
whistle and bell sounded to those lads “ over there ”! 
They lined up on either side of the track and greeted 
the iron monster with cheer on cheer. As it came to 
a standstill, they crowded close, and more than one 
gave the wheels an affectionate pat. Everywhere 
the progress of the locomotive was a triumphal pro¬ 
cession. But it was not all easy going for the engi¬ 
neers. French railroads are “left handed”; their 
tracks are not gauged like ours, and they have a dif¬ 
ferent set of signals. Add to these problems the 
fact that the engineers did not understand the 
French language and therefore could not interpret 
instructions, and you may appreciate their difficul¬ 
ties. Within a few days after their arrival, never¬ 
theless, the Americans were running without mis¬ 
hap. Moreover, they had begun the highly com- 


THE ARMY ENGINEERS 107 

plicated problem of double-tracking several of the 
main lines. Hundreds of miles of land had to be 
surveyed, the roadbeds and bridges had to be wid¬ 
ened, and a multitude of engineering problems had 
to be solved. But the work went forward with 
scarcely a hitch. Today double-tracked lines extend 
from several seaports, across the entire width of 
France. 

When the infantry moved forward many miles 
through the rain over such a scarred and tortured 
countryside as stretched ahead of the American 
army in the Argonne, the immediate task was push¬ 
ing the heavy artillery and ammunition up behind 
them. So with the first soldier boys went the en¬ 
gineers with wire-cutters and foot bridges. 

In one of the divisions the engineers at the zero 
hour were lying abreast of the third infantry wave, 
each man being armed with a plank. When the 
great hour struck, they went over with their “ weap¬ 
ons ” and hurried forward with such speed, that 
when the first wave reached the swollen, swampy 
stream just ahead of the jumping-off place, there 
were the engineers tossing their planks down to 
make a decent footway. Once the brigade was 
across, up came the planks and the engineers whirled 
in to build a substantial bridge with them, so that 


io8 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


when at nine o’clock the heavy traffic arrived, every¬ 
thing was in readiness for the trucks to cross. 

At nightfall, at the end of the third day, their 
colonel sat in his headquarters in a limousine. He 
was neatly uniformed, except that, in defiance of 
all regulations, he wore neither sock nor shoe. His 
weary feet had got past the point of bearing either. 
In one hand he held a cup of coffee, the first warm 
thing he had tasted in four sleepless days and nights. 
In the other hand he held the receiver of his tele¬ 
phone, which was conveniently set up on the front 
seat. Into the mouthpiece he poured his brief re¬ 
port, which was a combined boast and a complaint. 

“ A broad solid road all the way through, sir,” he 
said, “ and I’m blessed if the traffic of five divisions 
isn’t hogging it already.” 

The army engineers were the men behind the men 
behind the guns. They were not supposed to do 
any actual fighting. Rut twice, when necessity 
called, the engineers dropped their appointed work, 
and armed with whatever they could lay hands upon, 
took their places in the ranks and helped to swing 
the tide of battle. The first time was at the battle 
of Cambrai; the second time was in March, 1918, 
when General Carey called upon the engineers and 
laborers to fill the gaps in the British force pierced 


THE ARMY ENGINEERS 109 

and threatened by Von der Marwitz’s army. For 
three days this undaunted band, untrained and to¬ 
tally unequipped, held firm and kept the enemy from 
forcing a way to the Channel ports. 

It was at Cambrai that the railroad engineers 
performed one of their most daring feats of con¬ 
struction. Close upon the heels of the advancing 
Allies they followed, laying rails as they went — 
eight miles of them in all. Then, in the forward 
rush they suddenly came upon a German railroad 
that had been left untouched in the panic of retreat. 
Instantly the Americans set about joining their own 
lines to it, and followed on with the heavy ammuni¬ 
tion trains and supplies. It was a service of ines¬ 
timable worth and stimulus.. 

Besides the classes of engineers whose work we 
have noted, there were the general road building and 
quarry regiments, doing wonderfully efficient serv¬ 
ice, engineers for surveying and mapping, and flash 
and sound ranging, gas and flame engineers, water 
supply, motor transportation, searchlight (for bat¬ 
tle-front illumination), crane operators (for unload 8 - 
ing ships and cars), and a host of others. 

To the army engineer belonged the task of build¬ 
ing or levelling the barbed-wire fences in front of 
his own trenches. These formidable barriers were 


110 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


usually built at night, and the work was quite fre¬ 
quently done under fire, for Fritz’s star-shells kept 
the whole country illuminated, and he never lost a 
chance to be troublesome. 

The ordinary four-line “ apron and festoon ” 
fence was built in fifty-foot sections, with a narrow, 
crooked passage between. This passage was not 
readily visible to the enemy, and it was thoroughly 
covered by a machine-gun in case of attack. It 
served as a gate for scouts and raiding parties, and 
for the passage of the shock troops in an offensive. 

Many are the tales clustering about the barbed 
wire entanglements. Here is one which proves that, 
amid all the horrors of war, humanity was now and 
then appreciated on both sides. In a certain front¬ 
line trench, an officer of the engineers stood watch¬ 
ing the anguished writhings of a German balloonist, 
who was impaled on his own barbed wire in No 
Man’s Land. His sufferings were terrible, and at 
length the British engineer could bear the sight no 
longer. 

“ I’m going out to do something for that poor 
chap,” he said, and forthwith went over the top, re¬ 
gardless of his own danger. 

A heavy rifle fire was being exchanged. But, 
when the officer set forth on his mission of mercy, it 


THE ARMY ENGINEERS 


in 


ceased instantly. The officer managed to free the 
German observer and carried him straight to the 
German trenches. As he turned back toward his 
own lines, a German captain sprang upon the para¬ 
pet, took from his own coat the Iron Cross, and 
pinned it to the breast of the engineer. Then the 
two foes returned each to his own trench, amid a 
deep silence on both sides — a silence more signifi¬ 
cant than the most ringing cheers could possibly 
have been. 


IX 


Modern Grenadiers 

“ The Huns have a machine-gun over there that 
is particularly troublesome. We figure that it can 
best be taken by a surprise party. Pick your men, 
lieutenant — fifteen ought to do the trick — and go 
over at ten-thirty tonight. Travel light, and take all 
possible precautions, but get that gun! ” 

Such was an order typical of many all along the 
Front. It sounded simple enough, and it was simply 
received. Expeditions of this kind were common 
enough for the men who belonged to the “ Suicide 
Club,” as the bombers’ battalion was called. 

The lieutenant’s response was perhaps a bit husky, 
and his salute to his superior not quite up to the 
mark in its precision as he turned away. Later, he 
confessed to feeling like an executioner as he noti¬ 
fied his chosen ones of the trip in store for them. 
They knew and he knew that not one of them 
might survive to tell the story of their attempt. 
That machine-gun had a nasty record. It was 
112 


MODERN GRENADIERS 


ii3 


manned by a crew of daredevils, who seemed to take 
special delight in rapping out their death-dealing 
missives to various little derisive tunes. It would 
be a pleasure to silence them — but! 

However, preparations were soon made. Gren¬ 
ade aprons, which were fashioned much like those 
used by carpenters, with pockets for grenades in¬ 
stead of tools, were of no use for this occasion, as 
the men might have to go forward on their stom¬ 
achs, inch by inch, for no little distance. So the 
grenades were placed in kits, ready to sling about 
their necks; a few of the more ardent ones packed 
extras into little canvas grips to be carried in their 
hands. Several of the men then busied themselves 
with letters home, and with final messages and in¬ 
structions to their mates. Promptly at ten-thirty, 
their zero hour, they went over. As the affair was 
to be a surprise, no barrage preceded them. The 
only weapon carried by the little band was the com¬ 
manding officer’s pistol. It was to be strictly a 
bombing party. And every man among them was 
a past master at the job! 

“ Millses ” were the bombs usually chosen for this 
sort of an affair. These bombs were about the 
shape and size of a large lemon. They packed eas¬ 
ily, and when Fritz got one of them, he was “ handed 


ii4 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

a lemon ” in very truth. The Mills bomb is made of 
steel, the outside being corrugated into forty-eight 
small squares, which scatter in a wide area when 
the bomb explodes, wounding or killing any of the 
Boches who happen to be hit by the flying frag¬ 
ments. 

It was the Germans who introduced the hand 
grenade into trench warfare. Their first grenades 
were fastened to the end of sticks about a foot and 
a half long, and they exploded when they struck. 
The first English expeditionary forces had no bombs 
at all. They suffered many casualties until some¬ 
body had the bright idea of making bombs from 
empty jam-tins. Two men from each platoon were 
sent off to a hurriedly organized bombing school to 
learn how to make these bombs and to pick up point¬ 
ers in bomb throwing. At the end of two weeks, 
the men returned full-fledged “ professors of bomb¬ 
ing,” and set to work to teach the art to the others 
of their section. 

It was an uphill proposition! The Tommies were 
decidedly interested, but they were awkward. They 
managed to load up the jam-tins all right, using 
mud, bits of broken helmets and shrapnel, frag¬ 
ments of shell cases, nails, buttons from their gar¬ 
ments, rusty blades from their worn-out jack-knives, 


MODERN GRENADIERS 


115 


and what not — anything to express their senti¬ 
ments to Fritz! — They fixed the detonator and ex¬ 
plosive according to orders, and left the fuse pro¬ 
truding; they put on the cover and wrapped the 
whole thing with wire. The manufacturing part 
of the proceeding was all right. It was- lighting and 
throwing the things which caused the trouble. And 
small wonder! A piece of wood about four inches 
wide was issued to each man. This “ striker ” was 
to be fastened to the left forearm by means of two 
leather straps. The end of the fuse had a tiny tip 
like a match. By rubbing the fuse against the 
striker the bomb was ignited. 

Simple enough? Yes. But back in Blighty in 
those days the munition workers were a long way 
from expert. Those fuses were supposed to be 
timed to five seconds. But some of them went off in 
a second or two, while others would sizz for an 
hour, and never explode. Naturally Tommy had 
little cofidence in the things. After they had bur¬ 
ied a bomb-maker or two, he figured that the sooner 
he let loose of the bombs the better. So he plugged 
the jam-tins at the enemy without waiting to count 
slowly “one! two! three!” as ordered. Result: 
Fritz promptly picked up the tinned bombs and 
threw them back, with direful results to Tommy. 


n 6 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


Then came another order. This was to count 
“ one hundred! two hundred! three hundred! ” be¬ 
fore throwing the bomb. But Tommy gave it small 
heed. He didn’t trust that jam-tin and he didn’t 
propose to hold it, no matter who said so. There 
was no use to argue with him. Several changes in 
the style of the bomb followed, but Tommy trusted 
none of them, not even the safe and dependable Mills, 
which was positively guaranteed not to explode until 
released from his hand. For a long time he watched 
his opportunity and buried those allotted to him. 
Imagine the consequences when a fire was unwit¬ 
tingly kindled over one of those surreptitious 
dumps! 

Things were different when the American boys 
took a hand at it. With them, throwing things 
came naturally. The best bomb throwers in the 
ranks of khaki and blue were those from the baseball 
diamonds of Canada and the United States. No 
men in the service excelled them in taking long 
chances, and theirs was naturally a dangerous 
course. But, after all, everything depended on 
which side threw the first bomb! Time was when 
an experienced catcher could grab the bombs of the 
enemy and fling them back before they could ex¬ 
plode. But both sides cut down the time for the 





/ 


THROWING HAND GRENADES 










MODERN GRENADIERS 


117 

explosion, until it was practically impossible to do 
this. 

Besides the grenades thrown by hand and those 
shot from the grenade rifles of the bombers’ bat¬ 
talion, each front-line force was usually supplied 
with catapults and small trench- mortars* for throw¬ 
ing bombs. The Stokes bomb, weighing about 
eleven pounds, was the type usually thrown by these 
machines. In emergencies, however, this bomb was 
frequently hurled by hand. 

A tale is told of a daring Cockney grenadier in a 
British regiment who had been a juggler in a Lon¬ 
don music hall. One afternoon when everything 
was particularly dull in the trenches, he suddenly 
bobbed up on the parapet and standing erect, in full 
view of friend and foe alike, began a lively juggling 
performance with three hand grenades. His com¬ 
rades scattered to a safe distance and the enemy 
made no effort to check him. With amazing swift¬ 
ness he cudgeled the death-dealing spheres hither 
and yon, and the men on both sides watched with an 
intentness too deep for applause. For a quarter of 
an hour or more the exhibition continued: then the 
bombs were lowered to safety. It was a bold feat, 
but not so marvelous as it seemed, for the juggler 
took care not to release the triggers, and the bombs 


118 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


were really in little or no danger of exploding, even 
if they had fallen. 

Men are naturally brave when it comes to actual 
hand-to-hand fighting, and acts of gallantry on the 
part of the bombers were so common as often to pass 
unnoticed in the general excitement. Instances of 
men jumping into a trench during a raid and clean¬ 
ing up a number of Boches single-handed were nu¬ 
merous. The Victoria Crosses and medals awarded 
for distinguished conduct did not represent more 
than a fraction of those deserved. 

The Boche private was a mere fighting unit. He 
was not supposed to do any thinking for himself, and 
the plans for a German raid were worked out before¬ 
hand to the very minutest detail. A war corre¬ 
spondent says: “ I have seen a set of arrangements 

for an attack on the British trenches early in the war 
that yielded twenty-four unwounded and five 
wounded prisoners. They used on that occasion six 
thousand and seventy shells of various sizes. Feint 
attacks were made to conceal the real objective — 
one the day before and one during the artillery 
preparation for the attack, in order to draw the Brit¬ 
ish fire away from the raiders. Machine-guns 
played on the enemy rear trenches throughout the 
entire operation, and mines were sprung in other di- 


MODERN GRENADIERS 


119 


rections to mislead the enemy. They even worked 
groups of dummies above the parapets to give the 
appearance of parties about to charge, in the hope 
that the British would blaze away at them in the 
dusk — which they did.” 

Compare this excessive detail and elaborate cam¬ 
ouflage with the Yankee captain’s brief command: 
“ Take fifteen picked men; go over at 10130 tonight, 
and get that gun! ” 

It was not until after the second battle of Ypres 
that the Allies sent grenadiers into the air. Then 
they began a systematic campaign of bomb dropping 
behind the German lines; For thirty days all the 
British air squadrons on the Western front made 
things lively for enemy hangars, munition bases, and 
transport convoys, choosing the dusk of early eve¬ 
ning for their ticklish task. The work was so suc¬ 
cessful that bomb dropping from planes soon came 
to be a part of the general program for subduing the 
Huns. 

It was rather a nerve-racking business. Imagine 
floating along high in the heavens with a load of 
high explosives carried on a rack beneath the ma¬ 
chine! It was not so dangerous, however, as it 
would seem, for the bombs seldom exploded in mid¬ 
air. The difficulty was in getting started with this 


120 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

ticklish load in safety, and of course, the bombs had 
to be dropped before returning. One could not land 
with them, without disaster. The bombs used in 
airplanes were top-shaped affairs, with a percussion 
cap at the point, and an air propeller at the top. 
When the bomb was released, its rapid passage 
through the air whirled the propeller and kept the 
point of the bomb downward. 

Bomb dropping became a part of the observer’s 
training, and it was his business to release the bombs 
at just the right moment to make a hit. The bombs 
were suspended from strings carried up and fastened 
over a hook close beside the observer’s seat. A 
bomb was released simply by unfastening the cord 
and letting it fall. But it took a nice bit of judg¬ 
ment to land one successfully! The observer did 
not dare to wait until he was directly over the spot 
he wished to hit. You must remember he was mov¬ 
ing very rapidly, and the bombs had the same ve- 
lbcity in a horizontal direction. When released, the 
downward pull of gravity caused them to fall to the 
earth in a curve in the direction the plane was trav¬ 
eling. Hence the string had to be pulled some time 
before the plane reached the objective. It was not 
possible, of course, to successfully bomb small ob¬ 
jects. You can understand this by trying to drop 


MODERN GRENADIERS 


121 


a marble into a cup while swinging at full speed in 
a high swing. The speed and height of the aero¬ 
plane were only a part of the observer’s difficulties. 
Aerodromes, supply depots, field headquarters, and 
such stationary objectives offered the best targets. 

“ While flying back of the German lines during a 
bombing raid,” says a pilot of one of the fast scout- 
type fighting planes, “ I came upon a long railroad 
train, apparently loaded with supplies or munitions. 
It was coming towards me, and, as it was not armed 
with anti-aircraft guns, I could go down very close. 
I swooped to within four hundred feet and traveled 
the length of the train, the observer dropping the 
bombs as we went. With the entire length of the 
train to aim at we secured two hits. Shortly after 
the bombs hit the roofs of the freight cars, there 
came a great explosion, the cars burst into flame, 
and the train stopped short. Of course we were 
traveling too fast and got away too quickly to de¬ 
termine the exact results. We also attacked in the 
same way the long lines of motor trucks traveling 
toward the Front.” 

The Germans were fond of throwing an incen¬ 
diary bomb, which burst in a scorching liquid of 
flame, setting fire to everything within its radius. It 
was one of their schemes for demoralizing the 


enemy. 


122 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


44 I was asleep one night in a little town just behind 
tine Front,” says a Y. M. C. A. worker. “ We had 
come up from the base with a supply truck piled high 
with sweet chocolate, cookies, magazines, books and 
other comforts for the boys in the trenches. It had 
been a long, hard day, and I was- thoroughly wolrn 
out. My room had two big windbws and big glass 
doors opening on the balcony, which faced th*e rail¬ 
way station across the way. I had perhaps been 
snoring an hour or two, when there came a terrific 
crash and my bed was fairly covered with shattered 
glass. It was my first trip up and you may guess 
my sensations. But I did not move. I was too 
scared. My companion rolled over and sa-t up with 
a yawn. Then he shook me roughly. 

“ 4 Wake up! ’ he said. 

“ * You surely don’t imagine that I am still asleep, 
do you ? ’ I returned, with a feeble attempt at light¬ 
ness, though my teeth chattered. 4 What is it ? ’ 

44 4 Oh, Fritz is over with some bombs. We had 
better get up and dress. He seems to have set some¬ 
thing on fire. The town will soon be lit up beauti¬ 
fully, and he will no doubt be back.’ 

44 My friend had seen considerable of the war, 
and he seemed in no wise terrified. So I gingerly 
followed his lead, and tried to keep cool. We were 


MODERN GRENADIERS 


123 


soon in the street. Fritz had evidently aimed at the 
railway yards, but he had missed his objective. It 
was a house a block or more away that was burning. 
It was not possible to save it, and there was nothing 
inflammable near, so we went back to bed. But, no 
sooner was I asleep, than the crashes began anew. 
There were some twenty of them in all, and the din 
was terrific. In the beginning, I murmured some¬ 
thing about an abris, as the French call their bomb¬ 
proof shelters. 

“ ‘ I don’t suppose there is one in the town,’ said 
my companion. 4 The place has never been bombed 
before. Anyway we run as much danger being 
blown up seeking one, as we do staying right here 
in comfort.’ 

“Comfort? Shades of George Washington! 
But I didn’t say it out loud. I sat on the edge of 
the bed and shivered as the bombs plunked all around 
us and little sheets of flame rose up. A house next 
door sprang into blaze, after a deafening crash, and 
burned with a fierce light. A few more bombs 
dropped. But the depot remained unscathed. 
When the bombardment finally ceased, the towns¬ 
people gathered in little groups. Here and there 
arose a cry of lamentation from those whose choicest 
possessions had been ruined by the Boches. There 


124 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

was anger and sorrow, but there were no traces of 
terror. The French boys and girls gathered with 
their elders, interested and excited as you would be, 
but they were not afraid. So far as demoralizing 
the people, one of the Kaiser’s dearest aims, the 
raid was a complete failure, and of military damage 
there was none.” 



/ 


A TANK GOING INTO ACTION 


















































* 



























/ 

























































































X 


The Tanks 

Such great monsters as they are! And what 
magical things they have done! We understand at 
once why the tank corps is rated three points higher 
than any other branch of the service. They have 
had the most dangerous work to do. Always the 
tanks lead in an attack. Camouflaged with browns 
and yellows like mammoth toads, they go reeling 
and lumbering along into deep craters and out again, 
over concrete walls, old gun pits, and wasps' nests 
of machine guns, tipping and listing this way and 
that, but never upsetting. They plow through the 
heaviest jungle of wire entanglements as easily as 
if they were made of twine; shrapnel and machine- 
gun bullets flatten against their heavy steel armor 
and roll harmlessly to earth, while the tanks' own 
guns spit death and destruction on all sides. 

Imagine what it was like to live and to fight in that 
little black dungeon in the heart of the great mon- 
125 


126 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


ster, crowded and crammed with its roaring hun¬ 
dred-horse-power engine, six mounted guns, ammu¬ 
nition, equipment, provisions enough for three days, 
the members of the crew, smoke, oil, gas, and ear- 
splitting noise, and shaken by a lurching, rolling mo¬ 
tion like unto a ship in a heavy sea. Just to exist 
there would break the spirit of an ordinary man! 

What manner of a man, then, was chosen for the 
tank corps? He was more than a brave man — a 
man who had no fear of being killed. He was re¬ 
sourceful, quick-thinking, courageous, and shrewd 
enough to work with death at his side, and not die. 
He was a man with a very definite proof that his 
fighting mettle was true blue and that he could 
“ treat ’em rough ” in grim earnest. He was a man 
who could fight intelligently in a pinch where one 
man’s carrying on might mean a battle lost or won. 
Last of all, he was a man with a considerable me¬ 
chanical bent. 

Naturally it was not an easy matter to qualify for 
the tank corps. Three hundred out of five hundred 
men were rejected. The ranks were made up of 
volunteers mostly outside of the draft age. Sol¬ 
diers of fortune they were, with a record in sports, in 
big-game hunting, and in the various walks of life 
where courage, daring, and purpose were prime fac- 


THE TANKS 


127 


tors. Quiet men they were, with a sense of humor, 
which is, by the way, a very important soldier qual¬ 
ity. The spirit of adventure and a common inter¬ 
est in motors and gas engines brought the men of 
the tank corps together. They were ready to cross 
the Rhine in their strange crafts or to climb the 
snow-clad Alps at a moment’s notice. Their motto 
was the slogan of the tanks, “ Treat ’em rough.” 
And it was for this purpose that they enlisted. 

Three T. C. men were passing down a company 
street. The captain pointed them out to us. 
“ They are a fair sample,” he said. “ That man 
with the gold bars on his sleeve gave up a job of 
$300 a week as a mechanical engineer. The man at 
the right was earning $125 per week as an electrical 
engineer. The other man has the record of being 
the best caterpillar salesman in the world. That fel¬ 
low over yonder was once Cornelius Vanderbilt’s 
chef. He did not want to serve as a cook in the 
army, though real cooks are extremely necessary and 
hard enough to find, goodness knows. He had a 
brilliant record as a Swiss* soldier, so he managed to 
enroll as a private in the T. C.” 

The tanks were manned by crews. Each one had 
its wireless operators, its machine gunners, and its 
expert gas engine mechanics — men who knew their 


128 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


engine so well that the least flaw in its purr or in 
the rattle of its gears was detected and remedied at 
once. The officers for the tanks were all “ hand 
picked.” Personnel boards sifted them carefully 
three or four times to make sure that they were thor¬ 
oughly fit to command the ranks of the foremost 
fighters. And it was no small job to find just the 
right type! We have heard a great deal about tank 
standards and tank caliber and men who were “ cou¬ 
pled right.” There did not seem to be any par¬ 
ticular requirements as to size. In fact, there were 
some places within the great, clumsy-moving for¬ 
tresses where a small man was particularly desirable. 
He did not take up much room, and room was 
always at a premium in the tanks. 

A machine-gun veteran of the T. C. tells of his 
experience on that gloomy September morning, in 
1916, when the mists rolled up like a theater cur¬ 
tain from the battle-front on the Somme and re¬ 
vealed the great steel beasts for the first time. “We 
were a little uncertain as to how we were coming 
out,” he said. “Of course, we had given the tanks 
all manner of tests. We knew what they would 
stand in the way of shells against their armor, and 
we had tried them with bombs and mines under¬ 
neath. But Fritz was an uncertain proposition, and 


THE TANKS 


129 


the machines might pan out different in real action. 

“ I can’t tell you how I felt when the trapdoor was 
slammed shut and we started over. Suppose some¬ 
thing happened and we got stalled out there in the 
midst of the Boches? Why, man, if they built a 
fire around us they could soon roast us alive! It 
was hot inside that tank — it always is — and, 
though I was stripped to the waist, I sweat like rain. 
A Turkish bath wouldn’t have been in it at all! As 
soon as we began to work the guns, the dungeon 
filled with gas and the air was stifling. Old Har¬ 
monica, as our craft was named, pitched over gap¬ 
ing trenches and camouflaged gunpits, reeling and 
lurching. I was blind and dizzy, and it was all I 
could do to stick to my job. 

“ Treat ’em rough? Well, I guess so! We 
crunched a relentless path through whole nests of 
machine-guns and amazed Fritzies. We fairly 
reveled in Boche gore, and our machine-guns spat 
death and destruction on every hand. It was a 
merry party! I put my nose up to my loophole once 
for air. But you can bet I didn’t try it a second 
time. Zip! zip! zip! Fritz’s machine-guns regis¬ 
tered on every inch of our armor, and then the Big 
Boys came at us head on. Once or twice there was 
a terrific crash and the old craft shook all over. 


130 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

But she did not stop. Soon we felt reasonably sure 
that Fritz had nothing that could get us. And how 
happy we were! We laughed and shouted and 
raked the Boches according to our best Tank Hoyle, 
and all the time we wished heartily that it was over, 
so that we could get out in the air. 

“As for the effect of the tanks on the Frit'zies, 
they were simply paralyzed. The infantry took 
whole platoons of prisoners. * Gott in Himmel! ’ 
said one of them to me later, ‘ how could we endure? 
The things were not human. They were not fair/ 
Fair? Think of it! Fairl From a people who 
invented tear gas, fire shells and saw-tooth bayonets! 
On with the tanks, and let me do my bit! ” 

Righto! 

On with the tanks! The sentiment appealed to 
the battle lords of both sides, and much planning 
and drafting followed the initial appearance of the 
great steel beasts. Soon similar contrivances* were 
in use in all the armies. But it remained for the 
British — the first inventors of the tank — to pro¬ 
duce its most successful rival. This was the whip¬ 
pet, so called after the fast little dogs of that name. 
It could be steered almost as easily as an automobile, 
and it was much swifter than the monster types, 
being readily able to keep up with the infantry and 


THE TANKS 


131 


to maneuver with considerable ease and promptness. 
At Villiers-Pretonneux seven whippets bore almost 
the whole brunt of an attack on a brigade of Ger¬ 
mans, smashing them completely and killing about 
four hundred men. The French built a small tank 
which they called the “ mosquito.” It traveled so 
fast that the big guns could not swat it, and it had 
a vicious sting. 

Sometimes the tanks cut queer capers, as is evi¬ 
dent from the following incident. It was in the 
early days of tank history. One of the great beasts 
had come snorting up to a little French village, and 
the whole population had crowded around to view 
it. It stopped squarely in front of a vine-wreathed 
cottage, and the inmates gathered about it in awe 
and wonder, not unmixed with considerable admira¬ 
tion, as they listened to the tales of what the tank 
had done to the Huns. Perhaps the relation made 
the monster feel a bit skittish. At any rate it gave 
a prance and a snort, broke its stearing gear, and 
dived straight toward the cottage. The driver 
pulled and tugged and whirled the steering wheel, 
but all to no purpose. Straight up on the porch 
the monster went, and on into the house and out on 
the other side! Needless to say, the family had to 
lodge that night with the neighbors, and indeed, it 


132 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

is doubtful if they ever managed to live in the house 
again. 

Always the progress of the tanks was a record 
of daring on the part of their crews. In the great 
drive on the St. Mihiel salient the tanks were often 
two miles in advance of the infantry. Part of 
their success in throwing consternation into the foe 
was due to the intensive training given the drivers 
who had been taught to run their machines blind¬ 
folded, guided only by signals from the gunners. 
Feats of this sort were frequently necessary when 
the drivers were temporarily blinded by splashes of 
mud. 

A major in this drive whose machine was equipped 
with a thirty-seven millimeter gun instead of the 
usual machine-gun disregarded his orders and 
charged ahead performing countless deeds of valor, 
not the least of these being the knocking out from a 
church steeple of two Germans who had been doing 
terrible destruction with a machine-gun. Another 
tank captured a battery of 77’s, but it was so far 
ahead of the infantry that there was no one to take 
charge of the captured guns. 

Everywhere groups of Dixie negroes from the 
laboring regiments and men from the engineering 
corps were busy filling in with stone and earth the 


THE TANKS 


133 

huge shell holes in the roadway and throwing 
bridges over the places where a series of trenches 
stretched across the highway. But the tanks did not 
wait. Straight across the gaps they went, puffing 
and lunging and rocking perilously, their noses keen 
upon the heels of the enemy. Machine-gun bullets 
rattled furiously upon them, and big old shells 
whined all around. But there were few casualties. 
One German six-inch shell plowed through a small 
tank, destroying it completely. But only one of the 
crew was injured. 

In a certain attack on the enemy front, one of the 
big steel monsters wallowed down into a great shell 
hole, and had to be abandoned because of the storm 
of gas shells that the Boches sent over. Only the 
top of the tank was visible above the crater, and the 
American engineers kept strict watch upon it, as it 
was expected that the enemy would make an attempt 
to occupy it and capture the tank. But nothing of 
the sort happened. The Boches were too busy 
harassing the French and American troops with a 
heavy artillery fire to think of the abandoned tank. 

Along toward evening a French scout approached 
an American officer. “ Would Monsieur le Ser¬ 
geant kindly look through the glass and see what it 
is that is troubling us over there on this side of that 


134 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

old busted-down tank?” he asked, in perfect 
English. “ We have been watching it for an hour 
or more.” 

Immediately the sergeant steadied his eyes before 
the clear mirrors of the periscope and looked long 
and carefully out across the tumbled waste of No 
Man’s Land. “ Looks like a white flag — an 
S. O. S. signal,” he murmured. “ Do you suppose 
one of the tank crew was wounded and has managed 
to stick it out there in all that dreadful gas barrage? 
He must be in an awful state! ” 

“ Just so,” nodded the poilu, “ But it may be 
only a Boche trap. We’ve got to find out, of course. 
I’m going over there as soon as it is dark.” 

“ All alone ? ” the sergeant asked quickly, a ring 
of admiration in his voice. Full well he knew that 
it would be no pleasure excursion. Once night 
settled down, the Boches would be poking around 
out there, too, thick as fleas. 

“ To be sure,” said the Frenchman. “ It would 
never do for a party to attempt a rescue. But I 
think I can make it in home with the poor duffer.” 

“ Hmn! ” mused the sergeant. “ Know anything 
about tractors ? ” 

The scout shook his head. 

“ Now I do,” confided the sergeant boyishly. “ I 


THE TANKS 


135 

could put one together and drive it blindfolded. 
And I’ve got an idea! If you don’t object, I’m 
going to ask our battalion commander to let me go 
with you. Huh ? ” 

“Of course, if — well,” the Frenchman hesitated 
uncertainly, looking the eager young American over 
carefully, and then he smiled. “ I will be glad to 
have you,” he added cordially, evidently satisfied 
with his inspection. 

“ Thanks,” grinned the sergeant understandingly. 
“ I’ve done scout work before, and I guarantee not 
to spill the beans! What hour do we go over? 
And what are your plans ? ” 

It was about nine-thirty that evening, when the 
two slipped carefully out from -behind their own 
wires and advanced cautiously for fifty yards or 
more. Then they dropped down on their stomachs 
and studied the situation. There was no moon, and 
the dim light of the stars hid everything in an 
obscure mist. They could not see the tank. But 
they knew its location well enough. It lay off to 
the right about a quarter of a mile and much nearer 
the German lines than, their own. If they missed 
the big crater where the tank lay, they would in all 
probability stumble upon the German patrol. The 
utmost caution would be necessary. 


136 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

Slowly they wormed their way forward, about 
an arm’s length apart, pausing frequently to look 
and listen with all the intentness of two clever foxes. 
Presently the sergeant crawled squarely across the 
Frenchman’s path and whispered with his mouth 
close against the scout’s ear: “We have surely 
gone far enough. Let’s turn to the right a bit and 
crawl parallel to the enemy’s lines. I figure we must 
be pretty close. Gee, I hope Fritz doesn’t let loose 
with a star shell! They would see us sure! We 
are on high ground here.” 

“ Hug the clods,” cautioned the Frenchman, and 
once more they inched forward with infinite cau¬ 
tion. Then, the Frenchman’s arm slipped out past 
the sergeant’s nose. Close at hand lay a dim, 
straight line, showing a bit darker than the ground 
around. It was the edge of the crater! Over there, 
not two hundred feet away, was the German first- 
line! 

For some little time the two lay motionless, listen¬ 
ing for the slightest sound. But none came. It 
was as still as though they had the Front all to 
themselves. Finally, the American nudged his com¬ 
rade and let himself carefully down into the shell 
hole. The Frenchy followed and again they waited 
in a heavy silence, which was broken shortly by a 


THE TANKS 


137 


series of muffled, scratching taps. They came from 
inside the great steel monster, and they spoke 
mightily to the sergeant’s mechanical ear. He 
nudged his comrade. “ That guy in there is a long 
ways from seriously hurt. He’s a trying to slide 
the tractor belt on to the drive gear. I bet you ten 
cents if we had come an hour later, he’d a been 
gone!” 

“Shucks!” ejaculated the older scout. “He 
wouldn’t be blame fool enough to steer off in the 
face of all the Fritzies’ artillery! ” 

They sank back between the broad, corrugated 
“ crawls ” of the big caterpillar and considered how 
they could best make their presence known. 
Undoubtedly the man in the tank was well supplied 
with rifles and bombs, and if they were at all pre¬ 
mature, he might take them for Boches, and let fly 
with whatever was handiest. In the end, the ser¬ 
geant climbed up cautiously and applied his eye to 
one of the lookout slits. Inside, by the light of a 
fast-waning pocket flashlight, a panting, grimy 
khaki-clad figure heaved mightily over the great 
corrugated belt tread with a crowbar, striving to 
hook up the heavy chain. 

“ Hist! hist, friend! ” whispered the sergeant, 
tapping cautiously to attract attention. “ We have 
come! ” 


138 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

The man dropped the muffled crowbar and 
straightened up. “ Good work,” he grinned joy¬ 
ously, “ but you sure were a long time at it! Come 
on in and lend a hand.” 

A Yank! No wonder there were things doing in 
that old abandoned tank. The sergeant crept back 
with a noiseless chuckle. An instant later the 
rescuers slipped through the low square door into 
the stuffy little dungeon. 

“ Where is the balance of the crew ? ” asked the 
lone mechanic, as he grasped their hands in eager 
welcome. 

“ Crew ? ” queried the sergeant, a bit absently, 
his gaze taking in the great steel beams and braces 
which held the armored roof and sides, the heavy 
motor in the center, the bulging sponsons on either 
side fitted with a machine gun, the steel gas tanks 
and the ammunition magazines stretched along the 
frame. 

“ Yes,” returned the mechanic quickly, “ I hung 
out a signal for my mates to get back and help pull 
this old boat out of here.” 

“We didn’t understand,” the Frenchman ex¬ 
plained. “We thought you were wounded and 
came out to get you. How did you ever come to 
be stranded here alone? ” 


THE TANKS 


139 


“ Simply enough. The gas got in this old car 
and hung in clouds. We had to get out, and we 
were a bit slow in doing it, so that we all keeled 
over and lay sobbing in our gas masks. I was off 
a little to one side. The infantry grabbed ’em all up 
but me and beat it back. By and by the gas lifted, 
but the Boches had begun shelling so I crawled back 
in here for safety. Pretty soon I saw that there 
was nothing much the matter with this old boat. 
A piece of high explosive shell had cut her belt. I 
got it spliced O. K. but I couldn’t get it back on the 
drive gear and get the heavy chains hooked up. 
With you fellows to help that will be easy, and if we 
just had a driver we’d waltz her out of here and do 
a parade up and down the lines to show ’em.” 

“ But we have orders, sir, to get back with you at 
once,” expostulated the Frenchman. “ And we’d 
better be going! It is expected that the Germans 
will try a counter attack.” 

“If we just had a driver,” sighed the mechanic, 
pausing to glance about uncertainly, and lifting his 
arm to wipe his heated face. The motion revealed 
his insignia as a captain of the T. C. and the ser¬ 
geant stepped forward with a quick, eager salute. 

“ I reckon I can do the trick, sir,” he said con¬ 
fidently. Indeed, it was the very thing he had come 


140 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

over to do! “I have never done much with this 
sort of a craft, to be sure, but I’m an old hand with 
a farm tractor — chased one around up in Dakota 
for years, and Pve never yet failed to go where I 
wanted to.” 

How they speedily finished the repair work, and 
trundled off out of the crater into the very face of 
the advance lines of the German counter-attack, 
just in the nick of time to give away the little sur¬ 
prise movement the enemy had planned, and how the 
great steel monster plowed on home in a hail of 
Allied artillery fire must be left to the imagination. 
It is only another tale of American pluck and daring. 
But it outlines something of the romance and adven¬ 
ture that was to have been expected in the tank 
corps. Small wonder that this branch of the service 
should have proved so alluring! 
































\ 




















































































































XI 


Scouts and Snipers 

Behind almost every rock and crag on the Front, 
in those terrible days of battle, lurked the watchful 
eyes of the scouts and snipers. Dugouts were hid¬ 
den everywhere, and every dugout had its lookout. 
In advance of the front lines, all along, were lit¬ 
tle fortresses protected by sandbags, barbed-wire 
entanglements, and camouflaged scenery. In each 
one of these lookout posts a lone pair of eagle eyes 
kept vigilant watch out over No Man’s Land. It 
was weary work and required steady nerves and 
an iron constitution, for death stalked everywhere, 
and if the watcher slept he died. Sometimes a field 
glass helped him to get a bead on the enemy, and a 
bullet, or mayhap a shell, if he had telephone con¬ 
nections with a battery, followed worthwhile dis¬ 
coveries. 

Our first glimpse of a listening-post was from the 
rear. Slowly, carefully, over a mile of twisting, 
tortuous trench-going, we followed our guide, part 
141 


142 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

of the time on all-fours, and at length we found our¬ 
selves in a blind ending, roofed with sod, and hidden 
behind a heap of dry brush. Here two soldiers were 
crouched, and there was barely space enough to 
wriggle in beside them. Glueing an eye to the tiny 
peep-hole which one of them surrendered to us, we 
gazed out over our own tangle of rusted barbed 
wire. The earth sloped gently for a bit, and then 
across a narrow gully, possibly two hundred feet 
away, it rose in a sharp, rocky crag. Where the 
rise began was a second tangle of barbed wire. 
German wire that was, we knew without being told. 
A little farther up the slope, in a clump of spruce, 
was an enemy sniper’s post. 

“ They are mighty smart in keeping themselves 
hid,” whispered one of the scouts, in the smallest 
voice possible. “ But there’s times, specially toward 
night, when we can- hear ’em plain enough moving 
around and talking over there. For awhile this 
morning one of their sharp-shooters* got right busy. 
Guess he kind of thought this brush-heap might be 
a hiding place, for he took a couple of shots over 
this way. One of his bullets hit in the sod there 
above your head; the other one cut off that branch 
yonder.” 

Our eyes took in the shorn bit of bough close 


SCOUTS AND SNIPERS 


143 

beside our peep-hole, and unconsciously we edged 
back a trifle. The scout laughed noiselessly. 

“ Oh, there ain’t a chance of him turning loose 
now,” he said. “ Besides I think one of our snipers 
got him. Either that, or the Fritzies have pulled 
their freight back up into them deep woods farther 
up the hill. It’s been still as the grave here for 
hours. Nice cushy job this! No talk, no sing, no 
smoke, no nothing all the long day through! ” 

His expression was one of considerable boredom 
and disgust. It seemed to us that the intense quiet¬ 
ness might not be so bad, all things considered! 
We could not offer him sympathy. His companion, 
however, laid a consoling hand on his knee. 

“ Never mind, Reddy,” he said, in the merest 
shadow of a whisper, “ remember what I was quot¬ 
ing this morning ? — 

“ ‘ But once in a while, we can finish in style, 
Which I ’ope it don’t ’appen to me! * ” 

Kipling! In a trench on the Western Front! 
Small wonder that the Kaiser could not win! 

Back in the trenches later, we heard a tale of one 
of these “ finishes.” It happened when four men in 
one of our listening-posts were cut off by one of the 
enemy’s mortar-box barrages, which dropped down 


144 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

around them without warning, destroying the com¬ 
municating trench, and shutting them off so they 
could not get back to their lines. Thirty Germans 
raided the post under cover of the barrage. It was 
heavy odds, but our boys put up a terrific fight, as 
the rescuing party which reached them too late dis¬ 
covered. Twelve Huns lay dead with the four 
Yankees, while all about were traces of a terrible 
struggle. German rifles, helmets and bayonets were 
scattered all about the post, and one of our men 
lay with his automatic clutched in his hand. All of 
the chambers were empty, showing that he had 
indeed “ finished in style.” Like the average Yank, 
the four had chosen to die fighting, rather than to 
submit to being taken prisoners. 

There was at all times a strange fascination about 
that shell-tortured, muddy and wasted expanse of 
No Man’s Land. And yet there was very little to 
be seen. Yonder was a broken-down tank and a 
smashed wagon or two. Off to the right rose a puff 
of smoke, no doubt from a sniper’s post. A yellow¬ 
breasted starling skimmed easily over the Boche wire 
entanglements, and lit on a blackened stump, to pour 
out one of his best love songs. Small matter to him 
that thousands of men lurked in the trenches and 
shelters on both sides of those battered wires! Per- 


SCOUTS AND SNIPERS 


145 

haps he did not even know it. Few people would 
ever have guessed it, that is certain. 

But wait until night closed down! From the 
blackness behind those tangled, rusted wires on both 
sides, slipped forth scores or more of men, singly 
and alone, or in little parties. They were the scouts, 
the patrol force, and they went creeping and prowl¬ 
ing like hunted animals all about through the mys¬ 
teries of No Man’s Land. Dangers lurked on every 
hand. The least unwary move perchance started a 
furious rain of machine-gun bullets, shot and shell. 
Always the patrols sought to avoid encounter with 
the enemy. Each man was armed with two or 
three Mills bombs and a pistol or a trench knife. 
But these were to be used only in extreme emergency. 
It was the scout’s business to get as close to the 
enemy lines as possible, and to pry into all manner 
of their secrets. If a wiring party was discovered 
at work, or a scout movement was scented, word 
was at once carried to the machine gunners, who 
immediately cut loose on the spot indicated. 

It was spooky work creeping about in the dark, 
as the soldiers were taught to creep, hugging close 
to the ground, kicking on softly with the right leg 
and dragging the left, head down, weapon across the 
left elbow, and right hand ready for an instant 


146 a peep at the front 

spring if the enemy suddenly uprose to fight it out 
with bayonets. If a flare or a star shell went up, 
there was nothing to do but bury one’s face in the 
dirt and lie motionless, trusting that the sharp¬ 
shooters and machine-gun men would mistake one 
for a bump of shell-torn earth. Always the scout 
stared intently into the darkness, and he soon got 
able to see almost as well as a cat. If he neared 
the corpse of a man or a dead horse, he lay low; 
the one might be only playing ’possum, the other 
might be a papier mache creature, with a sniper 
stationed inside it. If he met a German patrol, he 
scuttled backward, unless he was near enough to get 
in one good silencing lunge with his bayonet or his 
trench stick. For the Germans hunted in parties. 
One man led. Two others followed close behind 
him, one on each side. And back of these were 
others, spread out in V fashion, like a flock of 
geese. If the unwary scout followed the first man 
as he retreated, he was soon quickly surrounded and 
taken prisoner. Then back to the Boche trench he 
went to have information wrested out of him. If 
he refused to yield under torture, he stood a chance 
of being shot or mercilessly crucified, according to 
the humor of his captors. 

Often the scouts returned with valuable informa- 


SCOUTS AND SNIPERS 


H7 


tion concerning the situation in the opposite trenches. 
Sometimes they stumbled on to raiding parties of 
the enemy in the dark, and a desperate struggle 
ensued. The American Indians, who served in 
considerable numbers with the Canadian and Ameri¬ 
can forces, were wonderfully able stalkers. One of 
these was a Ute Indian, whom the boys dubbed 
“ Chief ” Ross. The Chief hailed from Arizona, 
and he was by no means a model soldier. He never 
was known, to salute an officer but once, and that 
was when he had gone to his captain for' the third 
time to request a pass. He said “ Ugh! ” for “ Yes, 
sir,” and shook his head for “ No, sir.” He did 
not talk very much, he seldom smiled, and he never 
laughed. But he did attend strictly to business. 

On the second morning after Chief Ross’ battalion 
went to the Front, he knew every shell hole in No 
Man’s Land, and the location of every machine-gun 
and sniper’s post. Presently there came a night 
when the scout officer and the . patrol got lost in a 
dark woods. They dared not go one way or the 
other for fear of walking into the German lines, 
and their situation was critical indeed, when sud¬ 
denly a dark form crawled close up beside the lieu¬ 
tenant and pulled his sleeve. At the same time, a 
peculiar little grunt announced the presence of Chief 


148 a peep at the front 

Ross. He spoke just one word, “ Follow! ” and the 
little party joyfully obeyed. In fifteen minutes the 
Chief had them safely back within their own lines. 

A few days later, the scout commander expressed 
a desire to own a pair of German field glasses. The 
Chief happened to be within hearing. Next morn¬ 
ing, bright and early, he sought the scout officer and 
tendered him the desired plunder. “ I get him dug- 
out,” he explained briefly, jerking his thumb toward 
the German lines. 

Up to the time of the entrance of the Americans 
into the war, the rifle had taken a very small part 
in affairs. It was the chief weapon in the hands of 
the German sniper, and the Canadians and the 
British sharpshooters used it with some skill, but to 
the French it was primarily a bayonet staff. In 
trench warfare, one and all agreed that it was super¬ 
seded in usefulness and efficiency by the rapid-firing 
machine-guns, each one of which equaled at least 
one hundred rifles; and by those weapons of ancient 
warfare, the hand grenade and the bayonet. 

Then came the Yanks, brimful of ardor and a 
firm determination to kill or be killed. Naturally 
the rifle was the weapon they chose to depend upon. 
It was the weapon they used at home for effective 
business, when good American fists would not 


SCOUTS AND SNIPERS 


149 


answer. It seemed poor policy to them to chase a 
fleeing Hun across No Man’s Land to get within 
bombing range and blow him to bits, when a straight 
shot from one’s tracks would do the business more 
effectively. 

A Yankee sergeant at the Marne picked off 
twenty-five Huns as they were crossing the river at 
a distance of six hundred yards; several riflemen 
proved their ability to hit a man-size target at a 
range of eight hundred to one thousand yards. But 
it was not until the Americans went into the first 
engagement at Chateau Thierry, that the Allies and 
the Huns alike began to take toll of the rifles in the 
red day’s work. Here, when the shock troops of the 
enemy expected to advance to close quarters they 
were met, when more than five hundred yards from 
their objectives, with a hail of accurately aimed 
bullets from cool expert riflemen who knew how to 
shoot. They did it so accurately that great gaps and 
swaths were cut in the advancing line, and pres¬ 
ently the tide of battle was turned — that great tide 
which grew in volume and finally culminated in the 
smash of the Hindenburg line. 

What an eye-opener it was! Hitherto the Boche 
had been safe, from all but the very best snipers, at 
ranges of 600 yards or more. Even in the best of 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


150 

moonlight, the Allied snipers had not been able to 
make hits at more than a 100 yards distant, and as 
a rule only 10 to 50 yards were effective. Now, 
what might not the American riflemen accomplish! 
A whole field for individual effort was open to them. 
From the very first they had taken an enthusiastic 
interest in the mysterious wastes of No Man’s Land. 
It beckoned and fascinated them. And they took 
over the job joyfully, annexing the whole desolate 
region to the United States. Henceforth, as Irvin 
S. Cobb delightfully points out, it became “ All 
American clear out to them furtherest wires.” 

To meet the demand for skilled snipers, a special 
department was organized at our rifle school on the 
shores of Lake Erie, near Toledo, Ohio — known 
as Camp Perry. Here was constructed a network of 
trenches and a bit of No Man’s Land transplanted, 
apparently from the very worst of Flanders. And 
then began a decidedly interesting and romantic 
part of the rifleman’s education. Clad in shapeless, 
camouflaged garments, and wearing smoked glasses 
to give the dim effect of twilight and dawn, the stu¬ 
dent was taught to creep through barbed wire en¬ 
tanglements arrd find safety in a miniature shell 
crater; or equipped with a rifle upon which a tele¬ 
scope was mounted he entered a small dugout, 


SCOUTS AND SNIPERS 151 

where, through carefully concealed peep-holes, he 
watched the German trenches. It was all very real. 
Every now and then a papier-mache bust appeared 
above the enemy parapets. And the sniper banged 
away at the swiftly disappearing dummy! Gen¬ 
erally he got him; too, and the work was vastly ex¬ 
citing. No wonder he hit the mark when he 
reached the real No Man’s Land! 


XII 


Sappers and Miners 

Sometimes as a lone scout lay motionless face 
down in the dirt and grime of No Man’s Land, alive 
and alert, he heard beneath him a faint scraping 
which struck a chill to his heart. It meant that a 
mining party was down there, getting ready to 
plant a ton or so of high explosive. Perhaps they 
might even then be preparing to touch it off. There 
was no time to lose. He would back off quickly to 
carry the information to his chief. Two things 
might be done. One of these was to run a counter 
mine below the enemy and rush in fifty-pound 
boxes of H. E. on the double quick. If the en¬ 
emy’s work had progressed too far, this was not 
expedient; it would only result in disaster. Then a 
rushing party was organized. It was the duty of 
these fellows to rush in the moment the explosion 
took place, and occupy the crater before the enemy 
could reach it. It was a dangerous undertaking, 
because both sides immediately centered their atten- 
152 


SAPPERS AND MINERS 153 

tion on that crater, showering it with every variety 
of sudden death at their command, including a 
furious rain of machine-gun bullets. The chances 
of coming out of a rushing party without injury 
were about one in five. 

Tunnels a mile in length were sometimes laid to 
get in under the enemy's lines. Starting from a 
point back of their own trenches the sappers tunneled 
down in under the trenches held by their comrades 
and on out across No Man’s Land. Frequently 
their aim was some strategic position in the enemy’s 
lines. If they succeeded in getting in under their 
objective, high explosives were hurried in, wires 
laid, and then Bang! That section of the enemy’s 
line was scattered to the four winds, and nothing 
but a great crater was left, where an instant before 
were the most formidable fortifications. 

French sappers were especially active in digging 
mine explosive tunnels under German strongholds. 
And the Germans, if anything, rivaled them in bur¬ 
rowing activities! But they did not so often get 
across with one of their mines. Our men had quick 
ears and vivid imaginations. They did not relish 
the idea of being suddenly blown into a thousand 
fragments, and subconsciously there was always at 
work in the back of their heads that sixth sense 


154 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

known as intuition. It frustrated many a well-laid 
plan. 

Up in the front trenches, here and there all along 
the line, were men with listening instruments 
(stethoscopes) at their ears. But even with these 
instruments, when the first faint tap, tap was heard, 
it was difficult to locate the direction of the sound, 
for sound carries dully through the damp earth. All 
that the listeners knew was that somewhere near 
them the sappers were at work. The chief engineer 
then arrived and began listening. Tap, tap, the 
sound grew plainer. The suspense grew intense. 

At length the officer decided. The enemy was 
not so very near after all. They would go in to 
meet them. And he carefully gave his directions. 
How eagerly the boys laid hold with pick and shovel! 
That was better. If they could just get close enough 
to those dastardly Huns, they would show them how 
to come mining after decent men! Dig, dig, dig! 
Fast and furious, but oh, so carefully! — lest the 
attacking party suspect their coming and themselves 
spring a mine. At length, they judged that they 
were near enough. Wires were laid and fuses set, 
and they hustled back to safety. Five minutes, ten 
perhaps, and then came a dull roar. The career of 
that gang of Bodie sappers was ended forever, and 


SAPPERS AND MINERS 


155 

the lives of the infantrymen in the trenches beyond 
were saved. 

How the affair might have ended may be gleaned 
from the following tale of a young Irish captain, 
who was with the first English troops “ over there.” 
In company with two assistants, he was at work in 
a sap, deep underground, trying out some experi¬ 
ments which they hoped would be valuable in trench 
communications, when presto! there was a loud 
rush and roar and a stifling, choking sensation, 
which sent the three reeling, faint and dizzy, to the 
floor of their little gallery. A mine had been 
exploded in the adjoining trench — the trench which 
led back to their companions and safety! Investiga¬ 
tions proved that the job had been thorough. At 
least thirty-five feet of solid earth lay between them 
and freedom, and to make matters worse, no one 
knew they were at work in that particular sap! 

It was Christmas eve. All sorts of festivities 
were in progress. The enemy in the opposing 
trenches were Saxons. Not a shot had been fired 
for days. The line would be short-manned that 
night all right; probably no one could come any¬ 
where near them for hours. Indeed, there was little 
hope that any one would be out that way before the 
day after tomorrow! They tried shouting, but even 


156 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

though they kept it up until they were hoarse, they 
knew it would do no good. Likewise, it was with 
pistol shots. The racket well-nigh deafened them, 
and their heads buzzed with the reverberation, but 
they kept it up until the round of six shots had been 
fired. It was useless, of course, but it was a means 
of action. 

Presently one of the number suggested that they 
would keep warmer if they were to dig, besides it 
would aid their rescuers a little. Happy suggestion! 
They had neglected to bring their trench shovels, so 
they set silently to work with their bare hands and 
pocket knives. Dig, dig, dig — perspiration half of 
fear, half of effort poured off their faces. But they 
did not make much headway. 

After an interminable time, the captain saw a tiny 
rift in the dark wall of the gallery, like a streak of 
gray dawn seen through a curtain. He gasped and 
raised his head sharply. What was it? Was it 
really a light, or was he just “ seeing things ”? He 
looked away. Alas, his fears were realized. He 
saw a glimmer over there, too! That was impos¬ 
sible, of course. There was no light! It was only 
a mirage. So he told himself. And he dared not 
look again. 

But after all he was not mistaken. There was a 


SAPPERS AND MINERS 


157 

tiny rift. He had been so long in darkness, and 
his nerves were so shaken, that when he turned away 
from the gleam it still remained photographed on 
his retina. 

Fifteen minutes or more passed, then the corporal, 
who had been sitting dejectedly, half-asleep, raised 
his head. He, too, gasped, peered forward intently, 
and then turned to grasp the captain’s arm. 

“ A light! Look! A light! ” he shouted 
hoarsely, and was on his feet with a wild yell of 
relief. 

Investigation proved that when the earth had 
crumbled under the impact of the explosion it failed 
to fill the sap entirely. Now it had settled further, 
and a tiny crack remained open. It would give them 
air, and perhaps freedom! Feverishly they fell to 
work again, digging, digging, never stopping, while 
the minutes drifted into hours. 

At length it grew lighter. Morning had come. 
They could see one another’s faces and get a glimpse 
at their watches. They tried to rouse their comrade 
and make him understand that there was hope at 
last, but the poor fellow only cowered whimpering 
and they left him perforce. By and by a shadow 
crossed the gleam of light. Help was at hand! 
They rushed to the mouth of the hole, and shouted 


158 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

and shouted. But the damp earth retained the 
sound. There was no answer but the echo. 

More shadows! They passed and repassed 
repeatedly. Why didn’t they stop ? At last — at 
eleven o’clock — an answering sound reached their 
ears. It was the ring of a shovel. Thank God, 
some one was on their trail at last! 

The next thing the captain knew, he was in a 
Casualty Clearing Station, with a doctor bending 
over him. It was days before he heard the end of 
the tale. Then he learned that it had taken the chief 
Royal Engineer and his crew nearly four hours with 
the best of modern tools at their command to rescue 
them. He shuddered to think how futile was the 
task for bare hands and jack-knives! And he went 
on shuddering. For nature had not yet exacted full 
penalty for those horrible hours of torture. More¬ 
over, it would take her months and years to be fully 
compensated! 

A heavy toll? Yes. But nothing in comparison 
to that paid by countless other heroes for whom the 
rescuers never arrived, or who came too late. Prob¬ 
ably the full tale of the stupendous magnitude of the 
work of the sappers and miners, and the dangers and 
difficulties they encountered in the world’s war 
will never be told, or even dimly realized. 


XIII 


Camouflage 

The Camouflage Corps was the last addition 
to the service, and no department had a more 
important work to do. For in the great game of 
“ hide and strike — strike and hide ” to be seen was 
to be lost. Neither side could mass men, guns, or 
supplies behind the lines unnoticed by enemy air 
scouts without the aid of disguise. Hence the work 
of the Camouflage Corps was to make something 
look like what it was not. Good camouflage 
required a sense of humor, inventiveness, and tem¬ 
perament. And the work was good sport! 

Judge for yourself. The rooky camoufleur 
learned how to turn a death-dealing gun into the 
appearance of a peaceful rock, how to hide a moving 
transport train beneath a wavering mass of leaves, 
how to fashion dummy cannon and men for the 
purpose of drawing the enemy’s fire, how to turn a 
camp into an ordinary barn-yard scene, and a thou¬ 
sand other stunts of similar nature. He had to 


159 


160 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


learn to see everything with a bird’s-eye view; and to 
the degree that he could do this he was a success or a 
failure. 

The French were the first to develop the art of 
camouflage. The Germans copied it with good 
results. The English adopted it as a military neces¬ 
sity, but their first attempts were crude and awk¬ 
ward, lacking wo fully in imagination. Shortly 
after General Pershing reached France, he began 
cabling home for a corps of camoufleurs. The 
harassed War Department had its hands full licking 
the draft plan into shape, and gave him small heed. 
But Pershing kept right on cabling, “ Send me a 
company of camoufleurs! ” until the war office was 
almost distracted. 

Now there was in the city of New York a certain 
artist named Barry Faulkner, and a sculptor, Sherry 
Fry. These two men had become interested in 
camouflage, through reports of what the French 
were doing, and had established an experimental 
studio in Greenwich village. Hither were attracted 
seventeen friends, men whose names were widely 
known in the art world, and when they had 
dabbled into the new science a bit, they all swore off 
painting magazine-cover girls and millionaire’s 
wives for the duration of the war, and entered into 


CAMOUFLAGE 


161 


the new project heart and soul. At this point 
Faulkner and Fry presented themselves to Secretary 
Baker, and needless to say, they were received with 
open arms. Here was the beginnings of a camou¬ 
flage branch, waiting and eager to be used. Secre¬ 
tary Baker thanked his stars and looked about him. 
Shortly he was able to put his finger upon a New 
York architect with Plattsburg training. This man, 
Evarts Tracy, was appointed major, and recruiting 
began at once. Soon the roll call of Company A, 
U. S. Camouflage Corps sounded like the reading 
of a catalog for the Fifth Avenue art exhibit. 

Not only did the new department appeal to sculp¬ 
tors, artists and architects, but to landscape gar¬ 
deners, carpenters, mechanics, weavers, and so on. 
There was room and work for all. The new com¬ 
pany was attached provisionally to the 25th U. S. 
Engineers at Fort Meyer, near Washington. 
Straightway the camoufleur cadets set about build¬ 
ing themselves a camp. Tents were pitched and 
mess shacks and arsenal put up according to regula¬ 
tion army style, and then the camoufleurs started in 
to camouflage the place so that it could not be seen 
at a height of 3,000 feet from the ground. And 
probably never was a job begun with more 
enthusiasm! 


162 a peep at the front 


They painted the roof of the mess shack to look 
like the bird’s-eye view of a tree; they wiped out all 
angles and high lights on the place and brightened 
the dark surfaces; they changed their tents into 
flowering shrubs, and transformed the arsenal into 
a huge hay-stack. A close-up view of the place was 
startling; but it was effective. From a height of 
3,000 feet the camp appeared simply as a bit of 
peaceful rolling country. 

As the days sped into weeks, the casual visitor 
happening upon this camp might well have imagined 
that he had stumbled into an outdoor theatrical 
workshop. All sorts of experiments were under 
way. Nature, the great mistress of camouflage, 
was being copied successfully in thousands of ways 
by following the protective colorings suggested by 
birds and animals — particularly the stripes of the 
leopard and zebra, which so effectively change the 
outline of these animals at a distance that their 
natural enemies are deceived. One of the problems, 
which the camoufleurs puzzled over, was how to get 
rid of the troublesome high light on the gun barrel 
so liable to betray a marching army to the airmen. 
Some one found out that black and white splotches 
would neutralize in any background within a very 
few hundred feet. So Fort Meyer had the oppor- 


CAMOUFLAGE 


163 

tunity to view a very interesting spectacle. One 
hundred cadet camoufleurs* marched about with 
zebra-looking guns, while birdmen hovered above 
them, trying to spot the high lights. Not a light 
gleamed during the test! Later, a young lieutenant 
added to this success by inventing a machine that 
would turn old newspapers into grass blankets, under 
cover of which a squad of men could walk right up 
to the front-line trenches without being seen. 

American camoufleurs also have to their credit 
the discovery that a ship blotched with gray, crim¬ 
son, pink, ultramarine and vivid yellow would lose 
itself against the horizon at a distance of two miles. 
This was proved by means of a dummy ship set 
afloat in the little lake that was a part of the 
camouflage training field. Following the same idea 
they proved that a moving train could be made 
indistinguishable to air scouts by decorating the cars 
with the same blend of gray, crimson, pink, ultra- 
marine and yellow,— these are the color ingredients 
of any landscape. 

War camouflage has two principal divisions — 
invisibility and imitation. A screen of grass spread 
over a cannon blends with the grass of a meadow 
so that the airplane observer cannot detect it; this 
is invisibility. A supply train so painted that at a 


164 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

distance it resembles a row of cottages is an example 
of imitation. Always in camouflage the shadow is 
an all important thing. An object that is to be 
hidden must not cast a shadow. It is most success¬ 
fully concealed if it stands in the shadow of some 
larger object. Changing lights are especially trying 
to camouflage; sometimes what is carefully hidden at 
noon may be sharply revealed in the early morning 
or in the evening. 

The camouflage base in France was one of the 
most fascinating sights back of the lines. Here the 
boys in khaki and blue were busily engaged in the 
absorbing occupation of making fakes. Here, for 
example, was manufactured an artificial tree that 
looked exactly like the genuine article. Frequently 
after dark in No Man’s Land a real tree was 
removed and one of these camouflaged specimens 
put in its place. The next morning a periscope view 
from a cleverly fashioned woodpecker’s hole was 
furnished to an observer in the dugout beneath in 
the erstwhile stumphole. Yonder was to be seen a 
papier mache rock with peep-holes for observation 
purposes. Set over a pit, it provided a fine lookout 
station; on the edge of a shell crater, it made an 
effective screen for a sniper. 

Again there was a sample of an abandoned trench, 



ROAD CAMOUFLAGE 










CAMOUFLAGE 


165 

scattered with old shoes, tin cans, and a mis¬ 
cellaneous assortment of junk. On careful investi¬ 
gation one found that the shoes had screen wire 
soles and the tin cans had transparent bottoms — 
more ingenius outlooks for observation posts! 
There were life-size soldiers’ heads made of paste¬ 
board and fastened on sticks so that they could be 
hoisted above the trenches to draw the enemy’s fire. 
Cardboard soldiers were made life size and in enor¬ 
mous quantities. Some of these figures stood erect, 
others were lying flat, and in various crouching atti¬ 
tudes. It took an expert to tell which was the live 
one in two figures stretched at full length, with 
sighted rifles in their grasp. Cardboard men stand¬ 
ing out before the trenches in early dawn often 
fooled the enemy into thinking that an attack was 
impending. 

Often these fake men were left on guard in trench 
and outpost while the real soldiers were hiking to 
more advantageous positions. The boys in the 
trenches loved to pass off dummies on the Fritzies. 
It is said that there were instances where the Ger¬ 
mans reported in their official communiques that 
they had repulsed our attacks and driven the men 
to cover, when it was only cardboard men that were 
opposing them. A mile away the dummies could 


166 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


not be distinguished from real men. They were 
often used to draw the enemy’s barrage, while our 
men conducted important operations elsewhere. 

Some two or three hundred French women were 
employed at the camouflage factory to manufacture 
the green netting that was spread over the batteries 
which were placed in the open field, and the brown 
camouflage that was set up along the road sides to 
keep the movement of troops from being seen. 
These camouflages were made by knotting strips of 
green or brown cloth in fish netting. The meshes 
of the net were close enough together so that those 
on the inside could look through, and yet the enemy 
on the outside saw only the solid surface. The nets 
were simply great war curtains, no different in prin¬ 
ciple from the curtains which cover our windows. 
We can see out, but the passerby can not see in. 

Whenever an army in the field needed any camou¬ 
flage it was ordered from this factory. If a special 
kind were required, a camoufleur artist went up to 
the firing line to draw the designs and then, after 
the material was ready, to superintend its installa¬ 
tion. Suppose, for example, that a papier mache 
horse was wanted to replace a dead one on the field. 
The observers on both sides knew that horse’s every 
outline. The one which was to take its place had to 


CAMOUFLAGE 


167 

be most carefully fashioned, and it had to lie in 
identically the same position, or the eye of the 
camera would proclaim it a fake. The camouflaged 
specimen, of course, was hollow and cleverly 
arranged to accommodate an observer, or more com¬ 
monly an expert sniper. 

Such wondrous camouflages as were to be met 
in the field! For instance, the way to various 
important strategic points led over roads lined and 
roofed with reeds and straw. One could see 
through all right, but the enemy could not see in. 
Such roads were as safe as a pocket! En route one 
was apt to meet at any turn an odd-looking figure, 
dressed in shapeless garments of black-and-white 
zigzag 'stripes, with a mask of the same zebra-stuff 
over his face, and looking for all the world like a 
circus clown.. It was in truth an observer going 
out to try* his* luck from a certain tall tree-top. A 
big clock, setting innocently among the ruins of a 
wrecked church, not far from one of these camou¬ 
flaged roads, seemed to have fallen to its position at 
ten minutes past four. In reality it was carefully 
set there to screen a German sniper. 

Out in the field beyond certain trenches was a 
beautiful prize cow, but she stood no chance of ever 
winning a blue ribbon at the county fair. She was 


168 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

made of wood and painted cloth, and the meadow 
that she stood upon was in reality a shed roof. 
Inside the shed was a battery and its crew. A 
little distance away was another shed. Close up it 
looked as though some soldier, in an idle hour, had 
amused himself by painting a scene from the home 
farm. The watchful enemy, however, saw only a 
pleasant grove and in the foreground a hen mother¬ 
ing her brood. He may, or may not have suspected 
that the peaceful scene marked a shed. It was the 
camouflages that gave the photographic detectives 
their most grievous trouble. The simplest scenes so 
often hid the deadliest of the foe’s forces, that they 
were continually confronted with the query: “ Is 

it, or isn’t it?” Small wonder that it frequently 
took a wizard to decide! 


XIV 


The Army Spy 

For daring and ingenuity there was no class of 
workers in the great world’s war that could in any 
way be compared with the army spy. His work 
was very valuable and extremely necessary; in short, 
the business of war could scarcely have been carried 
on successfully without his aid. The airmen and 
the cameras ferreted out all observable activities that 
were going on behind the enemy’s lines. But there 
was a tremendous amount of information that no 
airman could ever have reached. He could not 
have found out, for example, where the enemy’s 
ammunition dumps were hidden, or when they 
expected to move their troops, or what operations 
they had in mind. Such details could be learned 
only in the camp of the foe, and here the spy had 
his innings. 

Ordinarily we shrink in abhorrence from a spy; 
his methods are rife with trickery and deceit, and 
he is unscrupulous in every way. But there are 
169 


170 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

spies and spies. Who does not revere the memory 
of Lydia Darrah and of Nathan Hale? Always 
in every crisis there have been many brave and noble 
spirited men and women who have not hesitated to 
give their lives for their country. And how gamely 
they have died! One cannot but admire such an 
one’s high courage and devoted zeal. If a record 
could be made of all the spy work done in France, 
on both sides, during the world’s war, what a thrill¬ 
ing document it would make! 

“ I was on the Western Front from the Marne 
to the Somme,” says Captain Corcoran, “ and I 
saw many enemy spies caught and shot. They were 
shot, you know, not at sunrise, but on sight. At 9 
a. m. they were at work. At 9:20 a. m. they were 
dead. But that did not deter them, not in the least. 
They kept on coming. They came at noon, they 
came at night, they came as priests, they came as 
captains, in our uniform, and with our accent. 
You never knew where you might meet them, or 
what shape they would take. When you had seen 
them often enough, you almost suspected the man 
next to you in the trenches, and you saw a sema¬ 
phore in every clock-tower.” 

Years and years before the Germans made their 
first public move in their grand scheme for world- 


THE ARMY SPY 


171 


wide power, their spies were carefully established in 
France, in England, and even in our own land. So 
cleverly did these Teutons adopt the manners and 
customs of their neighbors, so carefully did they 
hide all that bound them to the Fatherland, that not 
even the shock of war j’arred them from their roles. 
They were to all intents and purposes citizens of the 
land they had adopted, and so they conducted them¬ 
selves in the eyes of the world. But in private, by 
this means and by that, such aid as they contrived 
to send the Kaiser l Many of these persons have 
now died as spies, many more are behind prison bars, 
thousands alas ! will never be detected. 

Here is the tale of one of these spies. He settled 
in France so long ago and so unobtrusively that no 
one remembers the date. A shepherd he was. Day 
in and day out his flocks fed in the field adjoining a 
certain village, that presently came to serve as billets 
for a certain English division. A picturesque figure 
he was with his old smock, his pipe, and his long 
crooked stick. “ Bo-peep ” the Tommies called 
him. But probably the shepherd did not know of 
the title, as he was a very quiet person who always 
attended strictly to his own business. 

On a certain day the artillery commander sud¬ 
denly decided to use the village green where the 


172 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


Tommies had been wont to play football. Of 
course, the boys had to have a ball ground, so they 
moved out into the meadow with the shepherd. 
His field was plenty large enough for all, and things 
went on uneventfully enough until a misdirected kick 
landed the football in among the sheep. As one of 
the players ran to fetch it, the animals scattered in 
all directions — all save one. It stood so stolidly 
and unconcerned in its tracks that the soldier walked 
over toward it. Before he had quite reached it, 
however, he turned and waved toward the players. 

The officer who was acting as referee at once ran 
to see what was the matter. And a Tommy, a little 
sharper in jumping to conclusions than his comrades, 
made for the shepherd, who for some unexplained 
reason had deserted his sheep and was running for 
cover. In all the confusion that followed, there was 
only one who remained calm, and that was the 
imperturbable sheep. He stuck to his post, and 
for a very good reason. He could not leave it. He 
could not move anywhere of his own volition. He 
was only a wooden sheep. He had an excellent coat 
of wool, and he would never have been betrayed 
had not his companions deserted him. Close inspec¬ 
tion proved the animal to be a particularly ingenious 
contrivance. In his side was a trap door, which on 


THE ARMY SPY 


173 


being opened, revealed a cage of some ten or a 
dozen carrier pigeons. For weeks those birds had 
been carrying messages across the lines, containing 
heaven only knows what valuable information. 

In former wars the spy had comparatively few 
devices to aid him. The blockade runner, the car¬ 
rier pigeon with its code messages, smoke signs 
and stray kites were the usual means used to get 
information across the lines. In the great world 
war there was the telephone, the telegraph, and the 
wireless. There were human birds in the air and 
human monsters in the deep. Eagle eyes peered 
from behind every rock and crag, and from all sorts 
of lookouts in the earth itself. There were invisible 
inks with which communications could be sent 
unseen between the lines in letters, or they might be 
written on the human- body. Signals, codes, and 
ciphers became matters of life and death. 

Signal service men often caught what they sus¬ 
pected to be messages — letters, telegrams, cables — 
flying from enemies outside the country to enemies 
inside the country; but unless they had first the code, 
then the cipher to read the code, and the days of the 
week in which certain ciphers held good, they were 
powerless to read the messages. So many ingeni¬ 
ous blinds were devised to hide codes and ciphers, 


174 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


that it was utterly impossible for our experts to read 
half the daring messages that were passed right 
under their noses. 

Suppose, for example, that a message came 
through in numbers, such as 6 — 3 — 9 — 12. The 
expert may have had the words in hand to which 
these numbers corresponded. All right. But how 
was he to know that on Mondays he was to add one 
to each of these numbers, subtract two on Tuesday, 
multiply by four on Wednesday, add six on Thurs¬ 
day, divide by three on Friday, put a cipher after 
each one on Saturday, and do some other mathe¬ 
matical stunt on Sunday? He could not, of course. 
It is obvious, then, that he had little chance of inter¬ 
preting the message correctly. 

If an expert were suspicious of a message, why 
did he let it pass? Because it was not best to sup¬ 
press it. The sender could soon find another avenue 
for communication. The thing to do was to let the 
messages keep on coming, and watch for little slips 
to connect code and key. With these in hand, much 
dangerous information might be learned, and the 
enemies’ plans subsequently thwarted. Sometimes 
the expert employed stratagem to detect the genuine¬ 
ness of certain messages. For a long time cables 
kept going from a party in America to a certain 


THE ARMY SPY 


175 


point in England, concerning father’s health. The 
censor was suspicious, and yet there was no par¬ 
ticular reason for it. Finally came the message 
“ Father dead.” The censor drew a line through 
the last word, and changed the message to read 
“ Father deceased.” In a short time, back came the 
query: “ Is father dead or deceased? ” It was as 
the censor suspected. The message was a code, and 
he had queered “ the key.” 

The Allies’ worst defeats early in the war resulted 
mostly from enemies disguised within the lines giv¬ 
ing flashlight signals at night and heliograph mes¬ 
sages by day to tell the Germans where to range 
their big guns. Time and again spies turned in 
information which resulted in the destruction of 
ammunition dumps and supply trains, and in catas¬ 
trophes to troops that were being transferred. 

In a certain town from which the enemy had been 
driven, the only thing left standing was a church 
tower that faced the German lines. But even this 
had been injured. A shell had crashed into it, 
demolishing one corner, and wrecking the clock so 
that little was left of it but the great face and the 
bent, twisted hands. The place offered few com¬ 
forts, but our men bivouacked in the ruins, and sup¬ 
plies were brought up. As was usual in such cases. 


176 a peep at the front 

considerable ammunition was buried here and there 
out of sight of the airmen. For a time all went 
well. Then suddenly, one day, a shell came crash¬ 
ing plump into one of the largest dumps and the 
thing went up in smoke. 

“ A lucky hit for Fritz/’ said the officers, laying 
the matter entirely to chance. 

But the next day up went another one of the care¬ 
fully hidden dumps, and then a third and a fourth. 
It could not be just an accident. Some way the 
Germans were getting most accurate information. 
But how? The place was sifted for spies, without 
result. Days passed, with continuing evidence of 
the enemy’s accurate aim. Finally, on a certain 
evening, a London regiment was returning from the 
trenches. In one of these sections was a Tommy of 
an observing nature. 

“ Hi sye, mytie,” he remarked suddenly to his 
chum, “ ’ow d’ye think Fritz ’appened to leave that 
blinkin’ tower? ’E seems to ’ave a ’ankerin’ fer 
meetin’ ’ouses. Blimme eyes, now, look at that! 
D’yer see that ’and run round? Hi thought the 
bloomin’ relic ’ad a ticket fer Blighty.” 

“ What’s that?” demanded an officer, who 
chanced to be within hearing. 

“ Well, sir, Hi was just tellin’ me mytie ’ere as 


THE ARMY SPY 


177 


’ow that clock ’ad h’extra luck keepin’ ’ole with 
Fritz bangin’ away. An’ sudden like the ’and 
jerked round from seven to twenty past eight and 
back in a jiffy.” 

Of course an investigation was made. But the 
tower was empty. Maybe it was haunted? The 
C. O. did not believe in haunts. He set a watch 
about the place. Nothing happened that night. 
But early the next morning the padre came to the 
ruined church. He poked around it for a short 
time, and at length entered the tower. A few 
minutes later the hands made three complete circles, 
and then paused at their original position. Shortly 
there was a German spy less, and the division lost no 
more ammunition dumps. 

All the enemy spies were educated men. They 
spoke the English language perfectly. But, as has 
been said, “ A language is an elusive thing. It 
has many pitfalls even for the wary, and a little 
slip may lead to a long slide.” Not infrequently a 
tiny slip brought a man speedily before a firing 
squad. 

On one occasion a company of engineers was 
repairing a telegraph line. On top of one of the 
square concrete, flat-topped towers which, in France; 
replace the wooden poles seen in this country, was a 


178 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

man apparently engaged in testing the wires. A 
Yankee sergeant was passing, and all at once he felt 
an unreasonable dislike for the man at work above 
him. He didn’t know why; perhaps it was just 
intuition, possibly he felt a bit grouchy, and some 
movement of the man on the tower aroused his 
spleen. Any way he called out authoritatively: 
“ What are you doing up there, you spalpeen ? 
Who in thunder are you any way ? ” 

“ I’m a Royal Engineer, sir,” returned the man 
promptly. 

“ Oh, you are, are you?” returned the sergeant 
contemptuously, knowing very well that the fellow 
was no such thing. If he had been, he would have 
answered “ R. E.” or “ sapper.” “ Come on down 
here. I want a look at you.” 

The man prepared to obey, but as he started 
down, he slipped something into his pocket. Of 
course, the movement did not escape the sergeant’s 
eye. 

“ Royal Engineer, are you? ” he demanded, when 
the impostor was on the ground before him. “ A 
credit you are to the corps! What was that you just 
put in your pocket ? ” 

He whipped out a neat leather case, as he spoke, 
and shook it in the man’s face. It contained a wire- 


THE ARMY SPY 


179 


tapping machine, of course. That night, one more 
German spy slept in his grave, and the sergeant’s 
name was on its way to the French embassy, with a 
recommendation for a D.S.M. 

Frequently the efforts of enemy spies were wit¬ 
tingly turned to work disaster upon their own ranks. 
Here is an instance in kind: A Yankee battery was 
having a particularly hot time, shells were falling 
dangerously near, and it was evident that the posi¬ 
tion might go up in smoke at any minute. 

Suddenly a voice inquired in the C. O.’s ear: 
“ How are you making it ? ” 

There was the faintest of German accents to the 
query, and the officer felt intuitively that a spy had 
succeeded in tapping his telephone communications. 

“ Oh, fine,” he answered instantly, putting all pos¬ 
sible enthusiasm into his voice. “ The Boche is 
missing us in fine style! He’s got his range mixed, 
and the shells are falling about fifty yards to the 
right of us.” 

The receiver went up with a jerk at the other end 
of the line. In five minutes the German shells 
stopped falling so dangerously near; their fire 
shifted fifty yards to the left. 

“ How is it now? ” asked the voice, a little later. 

“ Oh, it’s awful,” wailed the C. O. “ They have 


180 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


changed their range, and we have two guns out of 
action already! ” 

Throughout the remainder of the barrage the Ger¬ 
man shells continued to fall out of harm’s way, and 
the battery crew, highly delighted with their C. O.’s 
strategy, merrily raked the enemy on the double 
quick. 

Another tale records the absolute perfection of 
the enemy’s spy work along the Front and in the 
British Isles. A certain colonel of a battalion in a 
Munster regiment was especially proud of the 
athletic record of his men. He thought they should 
be distinguished from the rest of the regiment, and 
presently he hit upon the plan of providing them 
with a special badge. He had to apply to the War 
Office for permission, and of course the thing occa¬ 
sioned the unraveling of considerable red tape. 
Little of this, however, was supposed to have reached 
the trenches. Finally the day came when the colonel 
received the badges; he proudly delivered them, and 
the boys as proudly pinned them on. Imagine their 
surprise, when shortly after, from the other side of 
No Man’s Land, a Saxon voice hailed them heartily: 
“ Well, Munsters, how do you like your new 
badges ? ” 

Just as perfect was the careful attention to small 


THE ARMY SPY 


181 


details in our own land. As a consummate example 
of the Hun’s barefaced assurance, drawings were 
made of all the leading highways in the United 
States, the rivers, the fortifications, the arsenals 
and munition plants, the best motor boats. Such 
drawings were taken from the persons of more than 
one spy whose career was suddenly checked. The 
drawings were not plain out-and-out maps, of course. 
Not they! They were most cleverly camouflaged. 
The bricks in certain conspicuous house fronts 
showed how many companies of soldiers could be 
comfortably stationed at various points; gardens, 
with trees, flowers, bees and birds suggested military 
positions; fields of wheat, of woods and of cut-over 
forest, where soldiers might be successfully con¬ 
cealed, were pictured as daisy fields, with children 
picking flowers. 


XV 


Over the Top 

Over the top! How thrilling it sounds and 
what pictures it calls to mind! You have thought 
of it time and again. Perhaps you may have 
visioned the boys in khaki and blue rushing forward 
in an impulsive burst of enthusiasm, drums playing, 
bugles caroling, flags flying, and a song which 
changed to wild yells of triumph as they pressed to 
victory. But nothing of this kind really happened! 
There was no reckless, haphazard chance about an 
attack. Indeed, when we give it sober thought, we 
see how foolhardy such a course would have been. 
No troops, however brave and courageous, could 
have hoped to capture a German trench by rushing 
it. The guns on the parapets would simply have 
mowed them down. 

When it was decided to attack a line of German 
trenches, the most careful preparations were made, 
and every movement planned and timed to the very 
second. Usually for hours before the attack began, 
182 


OVER THE TOP 


183 

the artillery poured shells, not only on the front-line 
of the enemy trenches, but on the communicating 
trenches behind their lines, and on the barbed wire 
entanglements in front. Observation balloons and 
airplanes darted hither and thither above the enemy 
to watch and direct the fire and to report the results 
to their commanders. Every possible effort was 
made not only to destroy the enemy’s fortifications 
and shatter their forces in the trenches, but also, by 
keeping a constant rain of shells dropping into their 
communicating trenches, to prevent them from 
bringing up reinforcements to meet the attack. 

A little before the hour set, the troops stood armed 
and waiting in their trenches, ready for the signal. 
The officers, with their watches in hand, waited for 
the precise second when the attack was to begin. 
How hushed and breathless was that waiting! How 
alert those long lines of grim-faced men! Bang! 
It was the report of the commander’s pistol. He 
jumped over the top of the trench and they were 
off, not in a wild, reckless dash as we may have 
imagined, but slowly step by step. They dared not 
go too fast or they would run into the shells from 
their own barrage. The officers were carefully 
posted and cautioned to keep this in mind, for the 
artillery was ranged to cover every step of their 


184 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

advance. The first shells were timed to fall about 
twenty-five yards in advance of the troops and so on 
and on, to the German fortifications, and into the 
communicating trenches behind them. The troops 
were supposed to cover twenty-five yards in a 
minute and as they advanced the guns lifted their 
fire, thus always keeping the men shielded by a 
terrific volley of shell. Here and there, in line 
where the greatest resistance from German fortifica¬ 
tions was to be expected, the troops were further 
protected by the great monster steel tanks, which 
lurched slowly, clumsily, irresistibly on ahead, nos¬ 
ing into shell holes and out, crushing everything in 
their path. 

“Slow? Slow? ,, says a friend, telling of his 
trip over the top behind the tanks. “ I found myself 
planning what I would do when we reached the 
trenches — if we ever did. It seemed hours that we 
trudged in the wake of those great roaring, belching 
steel beasts, spitting death and destruction from their 
gray sides, but it really was not over ten minutes. 
And when we finally did arrive, nothing was as I had 
pictured. The tanks stopped squarely over the 
trenches and blazed away right and left. A few 
Boches ran out and threw bombs at the monsters, 
but the great beasts hoisted their noses in the air 


OVER THE TOP 


185 

and went relentlessly forward. There was really 
no fight worth mentioning; the graybacks fairly 
swarmed up out of the trenches, and we took pris¬ 
oners by platoons. I was sent to the rear with a 
bunch of them. They seemed glad to go, and 
believe me, I was, too.” 

A big, husky infantryman is responsible for this 
tale of the marines in the trenches: “ We had taken 

three trenches, and had paused in the third to fill 
our pockets with grenades and bombs before tackling 
the next trench, which was chuck full of Boches. 
The Huns were using mustard gas and we were all 
wearing our masks. The grenades were passed 
around and the marines filled their pockets, and 
hung 'em on their belts. Then an ingenious Yank 
pulled out his extra gas mask and filled it. In a 
twinkling every fellow there had followed suit, and 
we were off on the run, carrying our well-filled 
masks like market baskets. We lit on those Boches 
like a cyclone and we cleaned them out with as much 
dispatch. In ten minutes there was not one of them 
left alive." 

But going over the top was not always as easy 
as these tales would lead one to believe. Fritz 
could fight and he often put up the stiffest kind of 
resistance. But he was trained to fight in just one 


186 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

way. He was by nature slow and clumsy as a baby 
elephant. When the boys in khaki and blue got 
close enough to charge him, in one of their wild 
bayonet and hand grenade raids, he was helpless. 

“ They seemed to have been taught a three up and 
three down sort of bayonet drill, after the style used 
on the stage,” says our friend, the marine. “ They 
made a head thrust at us and expected us to throw up 
our guns and parry. We did. But while we were 
at it, we kicked ’em, and then we Adam’s-appled ’em, 
and after that they ceased to be on the Kaiser’s 
pay roll.” 

Once the trench was taken it was frequently very 
difficult to hold it — consolidating the new position, 
they called it off-handedly in the official bulletins. 
The German artillery, in their defenses at the rear 
had the exact range and could quickly turn their 
guns to pouring shells into it. Furthermore the 
heavy bombardment of the past few hours had pretty 
well destroyed the trenches, and the soldiers had 
little protection until they could restore them. You 
may imagine how swiftly they worked when a 
counter-attack was expected! 

Always, too, the men had to keep constant watch 
for German traps. They were cautioned over and 
over: “ Never go into a German dugout, or a house 


OVER THE TOP 187 

once occupied by a German, or touch anything a 
German has left, without first investigating.” 

“Cut wires first and stumble over afterward,” 
was another trench commandment. 

Above all, soldiers were warned never to touch a 
loose board, or a spiked helmet, or any bits of equip¬ 
ment that might have been left lying on the ground. 
These were sure to release the springs of a mine 
cleverly laid to blow them to atoms. Another 
favorite trap was the “ double coffin.” Counting on 
the decent man’s desire to give burial to the dead, the 
Germans frequently left behind them stacks of 
coffins. The instant the upper coffin was moved, a 
spring was loosened and the charitable ones who 
were moved to do a kindness to their dead enemies 
were themselves killed. 

While he emptied dugouts and shunned traps and 
mines, the soldier had a difficult problem which he 
dared not for an instant forget. He had to keep 
under cover. Imagine what it meant to the man 
who had been trained in the open to fight in a seven 
foot ditch! He wanted to swarm out over the top 
and at them. He was too brave, too daring to tarry 
contentedly in the first line of trenches when the 
second seemed within easy reach. And he didn’t 
always do it either! 


188 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


In the first American assault against Chateau 
Thierry, the officers made a great hue and cry, warn¬ 
ing the boys against running too fast and ducking 
the barrage and paying no attention to anything but 
getting the Boches. “ We must advance according 
to schedule,” they said; and the colonel of a certain 
regiment of marines was most particular in pointing 
out a bunch of rocks where he wanted a certain 
battalion to halt. The major said, “ All right. I 
will stop my four companies exactly on the line of 
the rocks.” Well and good. The signal was fired 
and the boys charged into the face of the German 
guns. When they came to the rocks, the major was 
the only one that halted! The boys never heard his 
command. They were too busy, crying “ Kill ’em, 
kill ’em! ” and on they rushed. When the colonel 
came up, how he rowed the major for not stopping 
the troops according to orders! And the major was 
mad as a hornet. 

“ How could I stop those crazy sons of perdi¬ 
tion? ” he demanded. “If the crown prince and his 
whole army couldn’t stop them, what could I do ? ” 

But in the main the boys in khaki obeyed orders. 
They soon learned that it was not safe to do other¬ 
wise. 

The great French and American attack along a 


OVER THE TOP 


189 

25-kilometer front between Torcy and Soissons, to 
relieve the pressure along the Marne, was beautiful 
in its precision. No artillery preparation preceded 
the attack, for it was to 'be a surprise. Fortune 
favored the Allies by sending a driving rainstorm 
in the afternoon of the day before. With it as a 
shield, the troops were brought up and placed in 
position, and when the setting sun threw a double 
rainbow across the sky everything was in readiness. 

Early the next morning a rolling barrage cleared 
the way for the soldiers, who went over the top at 
five o’clock firmly and bravely, fully determined upon 
success. Through a shower of falling leaves, 
brought down by the heavy artillery blasts, they 
advanced swiftly in a program which called for 
three objectives. So perfectly was the affair timed 
and executed that, when the troops reached the 
second objective, prisoners were already arriving at 
the rear. 

They were opposed by excellent German troops, 
but the affair was such a complete surprise that 
there was little opportunity for resistance. Many 
tanks were stationed all along the line at points 
where difficulty might be expected. But the Ger¬ 
mans retreated so swiftly that the deadly steel 
monsters could not keep pace with them. By noon 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


190 

one American unit alone had counted 1,462 pris¬ 
oners. Fifty rifles and a large number of machine- 
guns were also taken. Great credit for the final 
success of the attack was due to the French cavalry, 
who came forward through the woods at just the 
right moment to head the Boches and cut off their 
retreat. 

There was no singing at first, they tell us, and no 
shouting until the foe’s first line was reached, then 
everybody yelled. And so firm and steadfast, so 
determined and persistent were our boys, that 
triumphant success was bound to follow. Indeed, 
had they not known it would, when they saw the 
blessed harbinger of the double rainbow? The 
wounded on their way back and at the dressing sta¬ 
tions stood about comparing souvenirs, laughing 
and talking, filled with delighted exaltation. They 
had relieved the pressure on the Marne and accom¬ 
plished all the purposes of their objective. They 
had gone over the top! 


XVI 


“ They Also Serve ” 

Stretcher-bearers and ambulance-drivers, in 
common with the water-carriers, served without 
fighting. They were the “ gossips of the battle 
field. ,, They alone knew something of other 
people's business. They told all along the route of 
what was going on under the clouds of shell smoke 
where the machine-guns rattled the fiercest. And 
right welcome their news was, especially to the gun¬ 
ners who worked in their camouflaged retreats, firing 
steadily at what they knew not, in blind obedience to 
the voice over the telephone. There was no time to 
run in next door and talk over the battle, and they 
could not have found out much if there had been. 
The men working the eight-inch howitzers, for 
example, had no more to do with the business and 
territory of the men at the nine-inch guns than 
Brown, who is a doctor on the sixth floor of a sky 
scraper, has to do with Black, who is a dentist on 
the tenth. So they hailed the men who could tell 
191 


192 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

them how the tide was turning! But don’t get the 
idea that these fellows loitered any on the job! 

The water-carriers were perhaps the humblest of 
the lot — a matter-of-fact bunch of fellows, who 
made the rounds between the “ gates of hell ” and 
the piping stations in the hottest weather with no 
more fuss than a country postman. It irritated 
them especially if anything happened to their carts 
on the way up, before they had delivered their 
cargo to thirsty throats. On the way back with the 
empty tank nothing much mattered. 

The tale is told of an Irish carrier who had all 
sorts of trouble with a balky cart horse. On a cer¬ 
tain occasion, when the shells were crashing about 
them in terrific blasts, the animal chose to be par¬ 
ticularly stubborn. He went by fits and starts, and 
at length planted his feet firmly and refused to budge 
another inch. In vain the carrier coaxed and 
cajoled and persuaded and wore out his whip and a 
string of picturesque adjectives,— the old horse 
stood rooted in his tracks. Then, blewey! along 
came a shell and wiped out both horse and cart as 
though they had never been. The driver had seated 
himself some distance away to gather energy, and so 
escaped unharmed. He jumped to his feet with a 
loud whoop of delight. 


THEY ALSO SERVE” 


193 


“ Served ye right! Served ye right! ” he yelled, 
in the direction the horse was supposed to have 
traveled. “ Maybe you’ll quit your fool balking 
now! ” 

When the weather was cool, the business of the 
water-carriers was slack. But not so the stretcher- 
bearers and ambulance-drivers. Their labors in¬ 
creased ten-fold in the rain and the mud. Per¬ 
haps you think it was an easy matter to carry a 
stretcher, under fire, across those shell-ripped sec¬ 
tions of No Man’s Land! There was no time to 
crouch on the ground, or to turn around and beat it 
to cover, neither could the bearers dodge the shell 
holes. The wounded had to be got in as speedily as 
possible. But there was no hustling. No, indeed. 

“ You know you just couldn’t make a fellow suffer 
more than he had to! ” says a lad, in telling of his 
experience as a stretcher-bearer in the field. “ We 
never thought of getting out in a hurry and saving 
our own skins. We toted those stretchers as gently 
as if we were carrying our own mothers. When 
we came to the shell holes, the bearer ahead would 
hold the bars away up above his head, while the one 
at the back went down on his knees, to keep the 
wounded man level and comfortable.” 

“ Talking of pure grit,” says another stretcher- 


194 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

bearer, “ one couldn’t shirk nor even flinch with 
soldiers all about him. I’ve seen men so badly hurt 
that I thought I just couldn’t bear it. But they 
never opened their heads — except to smile and 
crack jokes. I remember once a couple of my pals 
brought in a Scotty who had both of his feet shot 
off. The ends of his poor legs stuck out from under 
the blankets, and we were all just sick for him. 
But he was the cheerfulest man around. 

“ * Now where will ye be thinkin’ I’ve left my 
feet? ’ he says, with a grin at his poor stubs. 

“ ‘ Back in the woods, I reckon,’ piped up another 
man, on a stretcher near; * mayhap they have joined 
forces with my arm. Here’s hopin’ they get a 
Boche! ’ 

“ ‘ I’ll be looking around for ’em,’ says one of my 
pals. 

“ ‘ Save yourself the trouble,’ says the first man 
quickly. ‘ If they can’t get in here and account for 
themselves, we’ll just bide without them.’ ” 

A tale is told of a stretcher-bearer, a sergeant, 
who was out one hot night, gathering in the 
wounded from a tortured bit of No Man’s Land, 
when along came a shell and carried off his right 
arm. He dropped in his tracks, unconscious from 
the shock, and his comrades at once placed him on 


“THEY ALSO SERVE” 195 

his own stretcher. Back to the dressing station they 
started, but before they had covered any distance, 
over came another shell, severely wounding one of 
the bearers. This left only one uninjured man. 
They were short of help that night, and three men 
instead of four worked at a stretcher. The third 
man was at his wit’s end, when a voice spoke from 
the stretcher. 

“ ’Ere, ’elp me up, John.” 

It was the sergeant. The second shell had 
aroused him from his stupor. Wonderingly, John 
stooped and helped him carefully to his feet. 

“ On with ’im,” said the sergeant, then, and the 
second casualty was laid upon the stretcher. 

“ Now slip this belt o’ mine around me neck and 
over the ’andle,” advised the sergeant, briefly. 

It was done. And so, carrying his end of the 
stretcher, the sergeant trudged back to the station, 
unmindful of his- own injuries. Today, he wears a 
decoration. 

Another sergeant, an American this time, had his 
face terribly bruised and his jaw broken. Instead 
of going to the rear, he got himself bandaged up 
somehow and went on about his business. All day 
long he carried in wounded. He got the Victoria 
Cross for it, and surely you will agree that he de¬ 
served it. 


196 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

At another time a much-loved officer was being 
taken in on a stretcher. Suddenly Fritz turned 
loose with a series of star shells and No Man’s Land 
was bright as day. Instantly the stretcher-bearers 
laid down their burden. They knew what would 
follow. But they did not hunt for cover. Not 
they! Instead, they dropped down and spread their 
bodies over the wounded officer. Presently the shell 
storm died down. The officer was no worse, but 
one of his protectors had a bullet in his back. 

“ If a man died before we got him to the dressing 
station, we had to put down the body and go back 
after another wounded man,” relates Harry E. John¬ 
son. “ Sometimes, if I let my end of the stretcher 
down first, the dead man’s feet would strike me in 
the middle of my back as if I’d been carrying an iron 
pipe or something that wasn’t human. Oh, say! 
I didn’t like it. Maybe the older fellows didn’t 
feel that way, but it gave me the creeps. I wanted 
to run. 

“ Once a fellow called me to take a wounded man 
in. I was alone that time and the man was badly 
hurt. He didn’t make any fuss. They never do 
when they are seriously injured. It’s only the ones 
that get some little thing, like a broken finger, that 
make any row. All he said, in a queer sort of voice, 


“THEY ALSO SERVE” 


197 


was * Get me back — quick! * I felt awful sorry 
for him, so I took him on my back and started. I 
had to go two miles that time, and part of the way 
was pretty rough. I only stopped once, just for a 
minute to get my breath. We used to wear a leather 
jerkin over our uniforms; and after a while I felt it 
getting wet through. I knew that meant he was 
bleeding badly, so I hurried on. But when I laid 
him down and the surgeon looked at him — he’d 
already ‘ gone West.’ ” 

Stretcher-bearers in the trenches had work a bit 
easier than those in the field. But it was difficult 
enough even there. There was room for but two 
men at a stretcher. And it was often a problem to 
raise a heavy burden to the level of one’s shoulders 
and carry it there gently, through the twisting, turn¬ 
ing, treacherous-going of the trench. Sometimes 
abrupt bends offered almost insurmountable difficul¬ 
ties. 

It was in a hastily-constructed communicating 
trench that two doughboys at a stretcher met with 
their first embarrassing experience. No amount of 
twisting and turning would let them around a sharp 
turn to the left. Their man was sorely wounded 
and they did not know what to do. 

“ Hoist me up,” suggested the injured party. 


198 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

“ Why, I never thought of that! ” exclaimed one 
of the boys. Forthwith, they lifted the stretcher 
high above their heads and made the turn with ease. 

“ That was a dandy idea, Jack,” one of them re¬ 
marked heartily, then. 

“ It sure was/’ observed an officer, who had come 
up behind them. And oh! the withering sarcasm of 
that tone! “ You didn’t expose anybody but the pa¬ 

tient! You fellows cut that out henceforth and 
forever.” 

The boys looked sheepishly at one another and de¬ 
parted swiftly. 

“ Shucks! ” exclaimed the patient, fully as sur¬ 
prised and mortified as they were, “ I wouldn’t get 
hit again! Besides, how else could you have 
done?” 

“ Guess that’s what we will have to figure out,” 
returned Jack, sagely. “ Orders is orders! ” 

Just so! The incident shows one more of the 
difficulties that were to be encountered. Truly 
stretcher-bearing was a long way from a soft job! 
It took a man with a stout heart and an iron nerve 
and patience and compassion unending. 

And now we come to the ambulance-drivers: Do 
you know, we heard a man say the other day, “ That 
fellow joined the Ambulance Corps to keep from 


THEY ALSO SERVE’’ 


199 


having to fight!” What do you know about that! 
Sometimes self-appointed hunters of slackers dis¬ 
covered some rather startling truths, and no doubt 
the man in question would have done so, if he had 
looked into the duties of the ambulance man. Per¬ 
haps he did have a superficial idea of the work re¬ 
quired — to drive a c&r containing wounded men, 
as swiftly and as carefully as the roads would let 
him, from the dressing station to the hospital. 
Sounds meek and simple enough! Aye, but there’s 
a vast difference between the letter and the spirit of 
a thing. What the ambulance-man’s duties were, 
and what he did are two altogether different stories. 

To begin with, you know, of course, that the road 
he traveled was constantly exposed to shell fire. 
Moreover, it was a road only in name, for it was 
as closely pitted with yawning shell craters as a sieve 
is with holes. Imagine driving over a section of 
country of this sort without a headlight, on a night 
as dark as a pocket! And yet there were few auto¬ 
mobile accidents. Perhaps because the ambulance 
drivers were “ some ” drivers before they were ac¬ 
cepted, and “ some ” mechanics, too. The most of 
them could have taken their cars apart and put them 
together again blindfolded. And they had a special 
genius for emergencies. 


200 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


Here is the tale of a Yankee, named Edwards, told 
by Captain Corcoran. “ He was carrying a load of 
wounded along a nasty road, when his clutch chose 
to give out. Needless to say, he was not prepared 
for such an emergency and there was no use looking 
for aid. On the Front every man was out for him¬ 
self. No doubt a garage man will question this, but 
it is nevertheless true. He patched up that clutch 
by means of three horseshoes. The car ran for six 
hours.” 

Another instance typifies not only the ingenuity 
but the willingness of the Ambulance Corps. An 
early morning attack was scheduled in a certain sec¬ 
tor. This meant that the ambulance drivers must 
set out long before daybreak to arrive promptly at 
their posts. Three of them were chartering along 
right merrily, when, about half-way up the line, they 
found the road blocked by a battery of French sev¬ 
enty-fives. Investigation showed the poilus all dead 
beside their guns, half their horses killed, and the 
other half unconscious. A gas shell had caught 
them en route. 

What was to be done ? The drivers could not de¬ 
cide. Then, up came three more ambulance cars, 
and with them the chief of the section. He ordered 
the men to turn back and take another road. Before 


‘THEY ALSO SERVE" 


201 


they could obey, a second French battery pulled in 
behind them, effectually blocking the way. 

“ We can not turn back," said the battery chief, 
when affairs were explained to him. “ We must 
be in our place on time. The road will have to be 
cleared." 

But how ? It didn’t take the ambulance men long 
to decide. 

First they unhitched the dead horses, and dragged 
them off the road. This took so much time that 
they could not perform a like service for the coma¬ 
tose animals; so, digging their jack-knives into the 
poor creatures’ flanks, they got them to drag them¬ 
selves out of the way. Then, they hitched the sev¬ 
enty-fives to their own cars, and set out to pull the 
crewless guns up the line into position. This was a 
service inestimable, and one entirely out of their 
province. The French authorities were so pleased 
with the generous, helpful spirit of these ambulance 
men that all six of them were decorated with the 
Croix de Guerre. 

At Verdun, when the firing was the heaviest, it 
was impossible for the transport companies to get 
supplies up to the lines. One wagon after another 
was demolished on the way, and it seemed as though 
defeat must follow. Then the detail of ambulance 


202 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


men who were off duty and supposed to be resting 
came to the rescue. For ten weary hours they toted 
food-stuffs; then, their own duties intervened and 
they went back to their posts to carry in the 
wounded. As soon as their time for this service 
ended, back they went to carry food supplies. Thus 
they worked for two days in that hail of bullets, 
alternating jobs, until the victory was won. Non- 
combatants, aye, but did any men in the ranks per¬ 
form a more valuable service ? 

As an illustration of the devotion the Ambulance 
Corps brought to their work, the following incident 
is recorded: One night an ambulance was return¬ 
ing with a load of wounded, when along came a 
shell killing five out of six of the patients and one of 
the drivers, and wrecking the car. The other driver 
found himself with an unconscious man on his 
hands, and no way of getting him to the hospital. 
But did that feaze him? Not in the least. He 
slung the poor fellow gently across his shoulders 
and started on foot for the base. He had gone 
about half the distance, when he came upon a 
motorcycle with its driver lying dead beside it. 
Easing his burden softly to the ground, he proceeded 
to examine the damaged machine. It was not be¬ 
yond repair, and presently he rode off with it, bear- 


“THEY ALSO SERVE’’ 


203 


ing the wounded man slung around his neck. Only 
a merciful Providence saved both from being killed; 
for the shells shrieked and whined all about them. 

Always it was when the shells flew the thickest 
that the ambulance-man was busiest. One section 
of twenty cars has to their credit bringing in 2,400 
wounded in eight hours. “ I leave you to calculate 
how many journeys they made,” says Captain Cor¬ 
coran, “ allowing for the fact that if not prostrate 
eight men can fit in a car, but if not in a condition 
to sit up then only six can be got in. On one occa¬ 
sion I passed a machine that was carrying sixteen. 
Some of the lighter cases were hanging on the step, 
and others were slung over»the r.oof.” 

He goes on to relate what he styles as an amusing 
story, concerning an ambulance-man who came in 
one night to find all the sleeping-quarters filled. He 
was too tired to be particular; so he climbed into his 
own car. The place dripped with blood and the 
sickening odor of gangrene-gas, but he was soon 
asleep. He was destined, however, to find little rest. 
Five times during the night he was awakened by 
solicitous ambulance-men. They thought him a 
casualty that had been forgotten! 

An American ambulance-driver who was in the 
thickest of the fray at Noyon tells a story that adds 


204 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

further convincing proof that there was no place for 
a coward or a slacker in the Ambulance Corps. 
“ Our division arrived to reinforce the English,” 
says he. “ We entered the city at night, not know¬ 
ing that the Germans were already there. We 
stopped our convoy on the outskirts, unloaded the 
luggage, and went after the troops. We did not 
have to go far, for they came back on the run with 
the Boche machine-guns working all the time. Un¬ 
known to us, the English had retreated and we were 
in direct contact with the enemy. 

“ Our post was four hundred yards from the first 
line, and we got out of there in broad daylight. 
How we escaped I do not know! The road was in 
plain sight of the Germans, and I covered it ten 
times. My car was hit eighteen times by pieces of 
shell and lost its radiator. A car twenty feet from 
me was completely demolished by a big shell. Other 
cars had their tires blown off. My last trip I made 
with a flat tire. The car was full of wounded. 
Shells flew all around and two of my casualties were 
killed.” 

Surely, if any rookie did join the Ambulance 
Corps to escape the fighting, he jumped from the 
frying pan into the fire! Some of those lads would 
have felt unspeakably comforted, at times, if they 



AMBULANCE AND STRETCHER BEARERS 












“THEY ALSO SERVE” 


205 


could just have had a gun in their own hands, or if 
the rules of the game had permitted their seeking 
shelter in the shell holes, instead of careening across 
them for dear life. 


XVII 


In the Hospitals 

From the dressing station to the emergency hos¬ 
pital, and on by hospital train to the base hospital 
far removed from the scene of battle was a tortuous 
round of human agony and suffering. And yet, 
thank God, our boys did not, could not know what 
war meant in the sense that the Russian peasants 
knew it, or as did the Hungarians and Austrians. 
Jolting back in open carts with festering wounds, in 
that awful winter of fighting in the Carpathians, in 
1915, fifty or a hundred miles through the snow to 
the nearest hospital, many had their hands and feet 
frozen before they were scarcely on the way. 

Here is a bit from an American doctor’s letter,— 
a lieutenant who received the Croix de Guerre 
from the French government for gallantry under fire 
and for giving his blood to save the life of a 
wounded soldier. It tells of a day and a night spent 
at a hurriedly organized dressing station, with a hos- 
206 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


207 

pital corps of the British army, and is typical of the 
usual round of work at such places. 

“ We took over a hat factory at nine o’clock Eas¬ 
ter morning, and at three it was cleared out, fumi¬ 
gated (five buildings, two stories), operating bar¬ 
racks set up, beds put in, and all. The old priest of 
the town scared up several hundred shirts, the mayor 
found some stoves, we got our boxes unpacked, and 
at three the first cars arrived. At five we had two 
hundred and fifty wounded, at nine we were simply 
swamped. Every conceivable corner of the place 
was covered with stretchers, and the poor fellows 
who could walk were lined up along the walls wait¬ 
ing for attention. Finally, we overflowed, and at 
one time had thirty automobiles waiting to be un¬ 
loaded. The cars couldn’t go fast enough, and there 
were not enough of them. Every single man had to 
have an injection of serum (antitetanus), and the 
majority had to be rebandaged. We were a bit 
busy, five of us, and it was morning before we knew 
it. I took all the English lads, except the very, very 
bad ones, for I could talk to them and find out what 
was the matter and know whether I was hurting 
them or not. Lots of them died — we just could 
not save them, there were too few of us. 

“ I’ll never forget that Easter Sunday and night 


208 a peep at the front 


— that big hall where the wounded came in first, the 
smell of the blood, the nauseating odor of the gan¬ 
grene-gas, that horrible thing that kills so many of 
them and works with such rapidity, the cries of the 
suffering, the wheeze of those hit in the lungs, the 
yells for something to drink, the crash of rain on 
the roof, the calls for stretcher-bearers, the trickling 
of sweat in my eyes, the unconsciousness of every¬ 
thing but the little detail of the moment, the pulling 
out of a piece of shell or a bullet with the accom¬ 
panying groans, the fall over a stretcher handle, the 
death-struggles of one poor lad, the ravings of an¬ 
other, the lack of hunger, the absence of fatigue, the 
burning of the soles of my feet, the call for the 
priest, the continuous recurring thought that this 
was Easter — peace on earth, good will! — the com¬ 
ing of the morning, three hours of oblivion in sleep, 
and the same thing over again.” 

As fast as the poor fellows could be moved from 
the dressing stations, they were loaded into ambu¬ 
lances and taken back to the hospitals behind the 
lines. But even there they were not always assured 
of rest and quiet, because of the fiendish Boches 
whose aviators took special pleasure in hunting out 
the hospitals and finishing what their infantry and 
artillery had begun. The following letter from a 
Red Cross nurse typifies a case in point. 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


209 


“ The hospital was full of wounded men, and we 
knew there was great reason to expect an air-raid. 
That night every fellow that could possibly be moved 
was taken into the cave for the night. At 9130 the 
Huns arrived and never to my dying day shall I for¬ 
get that night. They bombed until 3 45 a, m., 
around and around the hospital-wall, got the chapel 
and morgue, broke every pane of glass in the hos¬ 
pital, blew open every iron shutter on the windows, 
came within ten yards of the contagious building, so 
that all the contagious patients were forced to come 
over to our cave and halls; the concussion of one 
bomb was so terrific that it broke again the leg of one 
of our oldest patients, whose two breaks had nicely 
knitted. The terror of the patients was simply piti¬ 
ful; those brave lads who had gone over the top so 
unthinkingly found it almost impossible to bear the 
racket when they were helplessly bound to a bed.” 

At Ypres the French and Canadians together held 
a “ salient ”— that is a place where the line curved 
out toward the foe in a great half-circle. It was a 
badly exposed position, but it had to be held never¬ 
theless. About five o’clock, on a certain day, the 
Germans launched a great wave of gas upon the 
French trenches. At that early period of the war, 
the soldiers knew of the terrors of gas, but there had 


210 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


been no protection provided against it. Borne by 
a favorable wind, the deadly vapor swept straight 
into the trenches. The men in the first line felt its 
awful touch, and fell in terrible agony. Those be¬ 
hind them broke, as even the bravest men will before 
a terror that cannot be struggled against. For al¬ 
most a mile the Allied trenches were emptied! 

It was a frightful moment. Everything de¬ 
pended on a bunch of raw Canadian troops. What 
could they do? Just what one would expect of a 
band of lawyers, doctors, ranchmen and clerks — 
men who had been used to thinking and acting vigor¬ 
ously for themselves! Before the Germans could 
seize the advantage that their gas had won for them, 
the men from up Calgary way had stretched their 
line to almost twice its length and swept into the 
trenches the French had lost. 

Back to the hospital behind the town of St. Julien 
came wonderful tales of their strenuous efforts in 
beating off attacks and counter-attacks. They lost 
the woods on their left and gained it again; they 
were forced to fall back to St. Julien, but there they 
stood at bay, without either artillery or infantry sup¬ 
port. How long could they hold? With feverish 
haste the doctors and nurses made ready to move 
their charges. But when they came to get their 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


211 


men, every bed except three was empty. In those 
three beds were three men raving terribly because 
they were powerless to move, each having lost one 
or both feet. And what had become of the others? 
They had gone to help their hard-pressed comrades. 
Far better that they should die fighting than to lie 
waiting for such tortures as the Huns would cer¬ 
tainly mete out to them, if they succeeded in break¬ 
ing through the line. And # die they did, most of 
them, but oh! so gloriously. For the line held! All 
night it held, and all the next day, and all the next 
night. Into the very streets of St. Julien came the 
Germans, but the men from Calgary refused to yield 
another inch, and no doubt much of their pluck and 
stimulus was due to the gallantry of those brave lads 
from the hospital. To their credit went a fair share 
of the final saving of the Allied line. 

“ Patch me up quick, Doc, and get me away from 
here — I’m needed somewhere else.” So spoke a 
lad whose wounded shoulder was being dressed, 
and he voiced the spirit of the hospitals everywhere. 
The lads were anxious to get well, not to go home, 
but back to the trenches. They had a work to do! 

“ Funny how this war * gets you,’ ” soliloquized a 
wounded soldier, from his bed in the hospital. 
“ Why, when I was at home I could hardly watch 


212 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


my father kill a chicken. Now, huh! Once I was 
racing along with some of my pals when we saw a 
mess of squareheads hiding out in a ditch. ‘ All 
right/ says I, ‘ take that for the Lusitania, and that 
for the Tuscania, and that and that and that for them 
Belgium babies ! 5 And we threw every grenade we 
had with us.” 

Just so! It was the way of the boys everywhere. 
The sooner the job could be finished, and finished 
right, the better. 

In a certain big, open-windowed tent hospital, only 
one man was in bed, and the nurse stopped proudly 
before him with a visitor. 

“ Tell him about yourself, Arthur,” she ordered. 

“ Why, there’s very little to tell,” obliged Arthur, 
with a smile, “ except that I wa£ wounded about six 
weeks ago. They kept me in a French hospital until 
day before yesterday, and all the time they told me 
there was nothing doing, so far as I was concerned. 
I begged them to send me where I could talk my own 
language; so they brought me here. The doctor 
looked me over: * The reason why they didn’t cut,’ 
says he, * was because the chunk of iron is too close 
to your heart. You couldn’t stand ether. But if 
you’re game enough to let me do it without knock¬ 
out drops —’ I never let him finish. ‘ I’m your 
man, Doc/ I says.” 


IN THE HOSPITALS 213 

“ And he was,” chimed in the nurse, as the lad 
paused. “ He never wiggled a toe! ” 

“ But I didn’t care for it much when he began to 
saw,” said Arthur, naively, his blue eyes twinkling. 

Over at Base Hospital 18, on a certain especially 
trying day, a faint voice suddenly broke the monot¬ 
onous quiet. “ What worries me,” it announced, 
“ is that the top of my tin bonnet and the top of my 
nut sailed away together. If they don’t fetch in that 
helmet, I don’t care much what becomes of me! ” 

“ Nonsense,” responded another voice, a bit 
fainter, if anything, but unmistakably very much 
alive. “ You must learn to hang on to your sou¬ 
venirs ! Here, nurse, please show him this.” 

“ This ” was what was left of a button — little 
more than the rim. 

“ You see,” explained the nurse, “ his jacket was 
open when Mr. Bullet said ‘ Howdy.’ It was a 
good shot all right. But not good enough.” 

“ Huh! ” said a convalescent, hobbling up and 
seating himself carefully on one of the cots. “ I 
can beat that all hollow! ” From the pocket of his 
“ kimono,” as he dubbed his bath robe, he fished a 
huge piece of hardtack. In the center was a chunk 
of shrapnel. “ Never feazed it, you see,” says the 
soldier genially, pointing out the intact condition of 


214 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

the army biscuit. “ And yet the C. O.’s expected an 
ordinary tooth to crack it! ” 

Naturally cheerfulness, courage and fortitude 
were always the most sought-after stocks in trade 
at the hospitals. The English realized the value of 
these in the very beginning. Their hospitals were 
supplied with red blankets and red curtains; their 
convalescents wore sky-blue uniforms. The hos¬ 
pital trains which brought the men up from the 
emergency hospitals were carefully fitted out. 

When America entered the struggle, we wisely 
followed suit, and with a lavish hand. Our hos¬ 
pital trains were the finest and most complete it was 
possible to build. One such train of sixteen cars, 
the last in line, was truly a work of art. All the cars 
were enameled on the inside. There was a heating 
plant and a storage car, carrying i ,000 rations. The 
rooms for the nurses and the staff had tables, beds 
and closets on the English compartment plan. 
There was a kitchen car, with a large pantry, soup 
cauldrons, ice box, cupboards, electric fans and lights 
and quarters for the cooks. There were eleven 
ward cars, each containing beds for thirty-six pa¬ 
tients, beside the beds were ash trays, magazine racks 
and other conveniences. In each of these cars was 
a medicine cabinet, a telephone service using the 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


215 


Morse code, two portable fans for gas cases, and a 
fire extinguisher. Back of the ward cars came a 
car containing the pharmacy and the sterilizing 
room. 

Some of our big base hospitals were cities in 
themselves, with their thousands of beds, their doc¬ 
tors, nurses, orderlies, ambulances and motor trucks, 
libraries, canteens and movies. They had such a 
strong and cheerful, forward-going life that the cas¬ 
ual visitor almost overlooked the fact that these 
places were “ receiving wreckage flung back from 
the front instead of sending new strength up to it.” 
Of course, as a matter of fact, this last was what 
they really were doing to a considerable extent. For 
a man strong enough to reach the base hospital stood 
better than a ninety per cent, chance of recovery and 
of going back . 

“ As you crowded into the big hut to see the 
movies after supper,” says a friend, “ with the hos¬ 
pital band banging away and everybody smoking 
and talking, and looked over the sunburned faces of 
the men, half of whom had limped over from their 
wards in their bath robes; as they applauded up¬ 
roariously when the nurses came in to look for seats, 
or bellowed when somebody opened a curtain and let 
in the light during a movie, or roared when a bench 


216 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


broke, you would scarcely have realized that you 
were not among a crowd of baseball players in the 
pink of condition.’ 7 

It was only when they began to hobble out after 
the show was over, that one saw that some had lost 
legs or arms, or had their fingers in splints, or were 
squinting from gas. They would stand for any¬ 
thing, those boys, except being pitied or preached at, 
or “ managed ” by some one who seemed to them 
lacking in manliness. A correspondent in Collier's 
cites a case in point. 

It was one evening at a particular hut, when a 
stranger came forward to lead the boys in song. 
“ Now, boys, altogether,” he beamed, and started in 
with a great air of enthusiasm, moving his hands like 
a bandmaster. Perhaps it was some movement of 
his head and shoulders, or an almost imperceptible 
teeter as he rose up on his toes, something difficult 
to put one’s finger on, but unmistakably there; the 
boys felt it. They rose in a body and began bellow¬ 
ing “ Good night! ” to one another behind their 
hands. They were leaving uproariously, when a lit¬ 
tle French girl stepped out upon the stage. 

“ Her black dress was cut away a little from her 
round white throat,” says the correspondent, “ her 
black hair came down in a quaint French bang, she 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


217 


smiled, but not too much, a broad, friendly and all 
inclusive smile, and she sang in a full rich soprano, 
with the ease of water running downhill. She sang 
Carmen and Madame Butterfly and French love 
songs that nobody understood but applauded just 
the same. Later she sang some more concert pieces 
and Joan of Arc and Madelon — that French march¬ 
ing song which we have more or less made ours. 
She had them all in the hollow of her hand by this 
time, as they, in a way, had her too, and then she 
stepped to the front of the stage, and with the color 
showing just a bit through the powder, in her crisp, 
business-like French way, she announced: Over 
Zere! 

“ It was just what they had declined to sing an 
hour before, but a breeze of amused approval at once 
blew across the crowd, and with one of her broad 
friendly smiles she added: ‘All wiz me! Tons 
avec moi in ze chor-ees! ’ She sang the words in 
French, the band playing with her, and when the 
chorus did come it brought everything there was in 
the hall — band and piano and trombones and the 
voices of five hundred men and the clear woman’s 
voice rising above them all, and finally five hundred 
pairs of army boots, or their equivalent in crutches, 
stamping out on the shaking pine floor: 


218 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


“ Over there! . . . Over there! 

And we WON’T —COME¬ 
BACK—TILL— 

It’s over, over there! ” 

The independent spirit of the boys, backed by the 
attitude of the army doctors and the nurses has al¬ 
most done away with the term “ cripple.” After it 
is all over, over there, there will be no army wreck¬ 
age, no one-legged heroes limping around to bore 
their friends the rest of their days with stories of 
how they won the great war. Some of the boys will 
have lost a leg or an arm, perhaps both legs or both 
arms, but they will not have lost their usefulness. 
What they have sacrificed will be the last thing in 
their thoughts! There will still be plenty of work 
for them to do, and they will do it in true soldierly 
fashion. 

Near Issodun is one of the greatest orthopedic 
hospitals, where many amputations took place. 
Following the doctrine of the institution, one of the 
best drivers among the hospital ambulance corps 
was a young man whose arms had both been ampu¬ 
tated just above the wrists. They fitted him out 
with a makeshift pair of hands and presto! the 
young man became an example to those of his com¬ 
rades who were inclined to be downhearted. 


IN THE HOSPITALS 


219 


“ I don’t know what you will think,” a convales¬ 
cent American hero wrote home from an English 
hospital, “ but I’m going back to France. I’ve been 
offered the directorship of one of the finest concert 
troupes over there, beyond a doubt. No more sol¬ 
diering for me, of course. I don’t suppose I shall 
ever go up the line again. An artificial leg is a won¬ 
derful thing, but it is not intended for a muddy 
trench or a Flanders road, so I shall stay in the rest¬ 
ing place’s just back of the lines and ‘ carry on ’ 
with my troupe of twelve. ... I could go home, of 
course, but I’d be utterly miserable there, with all the 
men I know over here. So until this little old war 
is ended I guess I’ll be in it. I do hate being out of 
things! ” 

Just so! It is a spirit which the boys in khaki and 
blue seem to have acquired in common. They will 
never give up no matter how great their sacrifices. 
No shelves or back seats for them! They have yet 
to give the world further examples of heroism and 
courage. 


XVIII 


Sportsmanship at the Front 

It has long been an acknowledged fact that a 
great victory is usually due to the love of sport. 
This is why the Boches were so often forced to cry 
Kamerad. They were in the war for grim business, 
and they had never learned to mingle work and play. 
The Germans have no use for football, baseball, or 
polo. Indeed Germany has no national sport of any 
kind. Her boys grow to manhood without once 
hearing the term “ fair field and no favor.” They 
have no idea whatever of fair play. We would be 
dealing, perhaps, with a different Germany if they 
had. In their eyes, a crooked victory has never been 
a thing to be despised. To win is always the goal 
and any means to that end may be used. The fol¬ 
lowing speech from a German officer illustrates the 
usual Boche rules for the game. “ What happened 
to Belgium that should not have happened ? ” he 
queries. “ What right had she to stand in our way 
and block Germany’s plans ? ” 


220 


SPORTSMANSHIP AT THE FRONT 221 


“ War is war,” to the Boche mind. It may cover 
any amount of wickedness. But no German can un¬ 
derstand the spirit which takes a man into battle with 
a song on his lips. They are amazed at the reck¬ 
lessness which joins in a fray for the mere love of it. 

At Mons a certain battalion of Irish guards came 
up against a Prussian force which outnumbered 
them eight to one. The Irish charged, but the en¬ 
emy flung them back like so many India rubber balls. 
Again and again the guards tried, shouting and 
howling as only Irishmen can, and back they came 
every time. But, of course, being Irish they never 
thought of giving up! Back they went yet again, 
heads down, mouths open, bellowing like mad, and 
this time the astounded Prussians were forced to 
give way. Gear through the enemy’s line went the 
victorious Irishmen, reforming hastily in the Prus¬ 
sian rear and crashing back again to their own lines. 
Disorganized, the Prussians began a formal retreat, 
but events soon changed this into a panic. For the 
Irish, in the camp at the rear, joined in to make the 
victory complete. The cook with a meat fork and 
shovel, the blacksmith with a hammer, the mechanic 
with a monkey wrench — every odd man of them en¬ 
tered heartily into the sport of the chase! And the 
Pride of Prussia fled helter-skelter! They thought 


222 


A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


themselves up against an army of madmen. And 
small wonder! Whoever heard of pursuing the 
enemy with the camp tools for weapons ? 

“ Perhaps it was not according to Hoyle,” says 
Captain Corcoran, who tells the story, “ but it was 
what we called fair when we got into a fix.” 

Let us see how the Boche conducted himself in a 
like issue. For some hours a company of Germans 
had been trying to dislodge some Canadians. It 
could not be done. So the Boche commander put his 
wits to work. He hoisted a flag of truce. The 
Canadian officer went over to learn the reason, and 
was promptly shot down and hung on bayonets over 
the German trenches, in plain sight of his men. 
What happened next was just what the Germans 
counted upon! The enraged Canadians rushed out 
as one man to avenge the death of their officer, and 
the Boches m'owed them down with a machine-gun. 
That is the Boche idea of sport and playing the 
game. 

No British or American camp is ever considered 
really complete without a football, and many a time 
these innocent bags of air played an important part 
in an attack, the Tommies and Yanks kicking the 
balls ahead of them as they charged over No Man’s 
Land, to the utter undoing of the amazed Boches, 


SPORTSMANSHIP AT THE FRONT 223 

who never in all their lives have had time for such 
tomfoolery. 

On a certain occasion, a fight was in progress for 
a Boche position which the enemy was holding with 
a machine-gun. The Bodies were seen to be weak¬ 
ening, and the victors, a company of Australians, 
were beginning to listen for the welcome cry of 
Kamerad, when lo! their supply of bombs gave out. 
What was to be done? They could not take a ma¬ 
chine-gun with their bayonets, and they had no other 
weapon. 

The captain was at his wits' end. Then his eyes 
fell upon a football lying near at hand, and he puz¬ 
zled no longer. At a word of command, two men 
sprang to his aid, and they ran forward, yelling like 
Bushmen, bearing the ball aloft, poised for flight. 
It was fast growing dusk. The Boches could not 
see plainly, and they naturally mistook the peculiar 
missile for a dangerous species of bomb. 

“Kamerad! Kamerad! Merci, merci, mes¬ 
sieurs! " came the inevitable cry, and the Boche gun¬ 
ners sank groveling on the ground. Before they 
discovered the nature of the “ bomb," the Austral¬ 
ians had taken the gun and the Boches were indeed 
at their mercy. 

One quality of the American soldier has aided him 


224 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

immensely in meeting the heaviest odds. It is his 
sense of humor. He fought like a hero, but he took 
his rest like a clown, persistently kidding the war, 
the Huns, his comrades, and himself and relaxing 
his nerves in a bath of nonsense that left them re¬ 
freshed and ready to meet the next emergency. If 
the enemy remained quiet a few days, or if he was 
specially irritable, Sammy had a nice little legend to 
account for it. 

A tale is told of an Englishman who was suddenly 
blown into a ditch of slimy water before the Ameri¬ 
can trenches. “ Hi, there, Tommy,” yelled a sport¬ 
ive Yank, “ what you fooling around for in our tea- 
water ! Get out of that instantly! ” 

Tommy was half drowned, spitting, sputtering 
and shivering in the icy mess, but he turned non¬ 
chalantly upon his tormentor: “ Fetch me a bit of 
soap, son, that’s a good boy,” he said coaxingly. 
“ This opportunity is too good to miss. I haven’t 
had a bawth in weeks! ” 

Have you heard the story of the first Canadian 
contingent? It is a record of 33,000 true sportsmen. 
There is room here to tell only of their entrance into 
the fray. August 4, 1914, England declared war 
on Germany. That very day Sir Sam Hughes got 
in touch with every newspaper in Canada over the 


SPORTSMANSHIP AT THE FRONT 225 

telephone and dictated a stirring call for 20,000 re¬ 
cruits. The answer was prompt. By October 1 
the first Canadian contingent had received training 
enough to be ready to embark. Guns and bayonets 
they had; but no uniforms. These were passed out 
in packages as the men took trains for the seaboard. 

No count was made until the men reached port. 
Then it was found that the 20,000 recruits numbered 
35,000. And they were all in uniform! Or, to be 
exact, each one was in part of a uniform. One had 
on the coat of a uniform, another the trousers, an¬ 
other the shoes, another the belt. Each man, on 
being questioned, swore solemnly that he had been 
one of the 20,000 and that he had received a uni¬ 
form, but in the hurry of entraining he had lost all 
except the part he wore. He was very sorry; he 
hoped it would not make any difficulty. He was one 
of the 20,000 all right, and fully entitled to go over. 

What was to be done? Unquestionably there 
were 13,000 liars in the bunch. But the ships were 
waiting; there was no time to sort the sheep from the 
goats. So the officers embarked the whole crowd 
for England, and left the tangle to be straightened 
out on the other side. 

It was the “ histories ” of the 33,000 which 
started the next trouble. In answer to the query of 


226 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 


the English war office: “Who is your next of 
kin?” it developed that of the 33,000 Canadians, 
9,000 were American citizens. Obviously this 
would not do. England needed men; but right then 
Downing Street was having correspondence with 
Washington about American enlistments. The 
Americans could not be accepted; that was all there 
was about it. They must go back. Like lightning 
the news spread through the camp. On the follow¬ 
ing day the contingent would be paraded, and the 
Americans mustered out. 

Morning proved that the time for miracles was 
not yet passed. For, when it came to a show-down, 
there was not a single American in the long line of 
33,000. All had been changed to Canadians over¬ 
night! And very eager they were to get at the 
Huns. 

“ I had a nice little business back in Calgary,” 
said one of them to the recruiting officer, “ and may 
be I didn’t have no call to come over here and mix 
into things. But I been reading the papers about 
how them Germans have been tearin’ up Belgium 
and smashin’ churches, beating and mistreating the 
women and cutting off the hands and feet of little 
children, and it got me sore! I says to myself that 
every feller in the world that’s free and independent 


SPORTSMANSHIP AT THE FRONT 227 

ought to join together an’ pound some sense into 

them. And, doggone, here I am to help do it! ” 
Just so! It was the way all the rest of the 33,000 

felt. Moreover they belonged- to the 20,000 contin¬ 
gent and they were loyal British subjects! Who was 
to say they should not stay? And stay they did! 
It was some of these same loyal fellows who held 
the Allied line at Ypres. They lied like gentlemen, 
those boys, and they died like gentlemen, too. 

In The First Canadians in France is recorded a 
fine tale of true sportsmanship and no little trench 
diplomacy: A certain English company had been 
holding an exceedingly hot place in the line. Fi¬ 
nally Fritz's strafing became unendurable, and the 
C. O. ordered the men back to a somewhat safer 
position in the rear. Presently the German artillery 
lifted their curtain of fire and the graybacks came 
swarming out of their trenches upon the Allied lines. 
Imagine the astonishment of the English company, 

then, to note that their old position was being de¬ 
fended -from the oncomers by a rapid rifle fire. 
Time and again the enemy rushed the spot, but they 
were driven back, and at each attack the Huns lost 
twenty or thirty men. Toward dusk the fighting 
died down, and shortly afterward the C. O. received 
the following courteous little note: 


228 A PEEP AT THE FRONT 

“ Sir: 

“ Two other men and I were left behind when the 
company withdrew. During the fight we collected 
in eight stragglers from other battalions, so we are 
now eleven. We held the line against all attacks. 
If you, sir, and the rest of the company wish to come 
back now, the trench is perfectly safe. 

“ James Guffin, Sergeant.” 

The wounded officer who tells the story com¬ 
ments : “ I showed that note to my chief before 

they carried me away. It was an humiliation, but it 
was my duty.” Evidently he was a true sportsman, 
too. 

A chaplain was going the rounds one morning: 
“ Hi, Charley,” grinned a corporal, beckoning to 
him. “ Come see this breakfast pill Fritz sent over.” 
He indicated a huge shell which was propped care¬ 
fully against a tree. “ It is a dud,” he continued, 
“ or it would have cleansed our systems in fine 
shape.” 

Thus did the raving Huns depress the spirit of the 
Allies! 

“ It was a queer old war,” said a returned artil¬ 
leryman the other day. “ We showered ’em with 
H. E. and shrapnel all day, and at night we shot 
over plain facts pamphlets hoping that those who 


SPORTSMANSHIP AT THE FRONT 229 

had sense enough to read might have sense enough 
to run while the going was good. On occasion, we 
fed them and gave them drink and bound up their 
wounds.” 

Aye! If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he 
thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt 
heap coals of fire on his head. Our boys were big 
enough and sportsmen enough to get real pleasure 
in obeying the Divine command. 

The French always went into battle with a song on 
their lips, or a shout for blood. They were in the 
fray for the honor of France, and their song 
breathed a love for their country. They fought 
recklessly, ardently, and victoriously, as they proved 
over and over. The British and the Americans, too, 
went into the fray with a song, but theirs was not 
always a song which breathed the honor of their 
land. Frequently Tommy’s feet kept time to some 
music-hall ditty. The Yank, more often than not, 
sang out just as he went over the top, “ Good-by, ma, 
good-by, pa, good-by, mule, with your old hee haw! ” 
But they both went over, and mingled in their hearts, 
with their sportsman’s pride and their love of the 
game, which lent reckless wings to victory, was their 
joy in the triumph of winning for the right, and the 
old, ever-new spirit of ’76 — 

LIBERTY OR DEATH ! 





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